


What's Done in the Dark

by queenmab_scherzo



Category: Being Human (UK)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Character Study, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mitchell's history, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Harm, Slash, Substance Abuse, it's not pretty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:49:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenmab_scherzo/pseuds/queenmab_scherzo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Mitchell's sordid history. You know- things he'd rather not talk about. (Shabby exploration of character development).</p><p>Warning! Serious instances of rape/non-con/dub-con and violence</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Recall You Welcomed Me with Open Arms

**Author's Note:**

> Mitchell is not a good guy. He's my baby, don't get me wrong ... but very much a broken, misguided, selfish, bad person. Herein lie snapshots which fit together to make him that person.
> 
> This story is indeed already published on ff.net under the author name queenmab-scherzo, so if it's familiar to you, don't be alarmed!

Mitchell slept with two girls back home before enlisting. One was older than him, and said she was going to school to be an archeologist, and neither of them believed that but they had a good night together. The other was a farmer's timid daughter with big eyes who was surprisingly loud in bed.

More than once, Mitchell caught himself staring too long at the men in his company while they all showered. It made his stomach and his heart switch places. For a week he refused to sleep more than an hour at a time, afraid that he might say something incriminating in his dreams.

The decision to sacrifice himself to save his men came easily, and Mitchell tried not to think about why.

When Herrick makes a pass at Mitchell, there is no romance or seduction. He treats it like the most natural thing in the world. It must be expected of them. Mitchell remembers how the shirtless soldiers made him feel, and after all, he owes Herrick for sparing him; it stands to reason that he also wants more from their relationship.

The first time Herrick takes him, it isn't fast or slow or rough or sensual. It isn't anything. It isn't even long, though it seems it to Mitchell while he lays there, cheek pressed into wadded-up sheets, forgetting the beginning and end and what else there ever was.

It aches dully, a faint pain that pulses out from Mitchell's gut. He makes it mildly worse by tensing up, clenching his whole body in some hope that it will become numb; fisting the sheets willfully; grinding his teeth; scrunching up his face to look for other things behind his eyelids. This can hardly be called pain compared to other horrors Mitchell has experienced--and inflicted--since he wants this, after all. But it lingers. It hooks into something behind his eyes, digs its heels in and forces itself on the parts of him that are left.

* * *

Every vampire fights in his own way. Some were once trained as soldiers, and still have a strict rigidity about their attacks. Some grew up part of history's never-ending working-class and so use whatever tools the environment offers them. Some never fought a day in their life before that fateful bite; these are usually sloppy, and rely on defense over offense.

Mitchell possesses a perfect combination of combat gifts. His body frozen in its physical prime, he overpowers most opponents if they choose to fight back. He dodges and maneuvers with a fluidity the older vampires can rarely achieve. His resourcefulness undoubtedly comes from growing up on a struggling farm in South Ireland; his knack for stealth, from training in the army.

Herrick's men can't get a good read on Mitchell, at first. He's young. He tells innocent jokes, watches them argue with wide eyes, and furrows his brow when trying to pick apart strategies, which he never understands. But Herrick always points him to the thick of battle, and he always comes back with blown pupils and bright eyes, covered in the blood of other men.

One day a stout 130-something tries to prove himself by leaping out of a copse onto enemy scouts, only to get surrounded by three bayonets. Without a sound, Mitchell chucks a knife into one while tearing the throat out of another, twists the bayonet off the dead man's rifle and turns his soulless eyes on the last enemy, who flees screaming through the trees.

"What're you running for? _I thought we were having fun_!" Mitchell bares his teeth in a manic grin, his voice coming apart around the edges.

That night, after the company has washed up and made supper, talk turns to the ladies they'd had in a little French village not two weeks before. Again, Mitchell's eyes go wide and cheeks turn red, reminding everyone how many years there are between them.

* * *

Herrick had many women, scores of them, but only one man, at least at a time. Most of their people knew how far his relationship with Mitchell went, but woe to he who said anything out loud or in public. For awhile their silence was a blessing that allowed Mitchell some shred of dignity.

After awhile silence became boring. Whenever they could catch Mitchell alone, the taunting began. _Lap dog. Whore. You're nothing but his bedroom toy. Filthy. He'd just keep you locked up if you didn't kill so well_.

They escalated the longer Mitchell ignored them. _Why don't you come to my bed? You know you want to. You know all you're good for is biting necks and spreading your legs._

A door stop digs into Mitchell's shoulder blade where he stands pinned against the wall. The vampire before him crowds his personal space, just close enough to brush against him in all the wrong places. His name is Peter or Philip or something plain. His knuckles press into the wall, framing Mitchell's face. Peter's body is middle-aged, but if Mitchell remembers correctly, he fought in one of Napoleon's armies. And he's cornered Mitchell before.

"How many times do I have to ask?" he moans. Mitchell squirms and sucks in a breath. The air feels heavy with the smell of black pepper and something sour. Mitchell keeps his eyes trained across the room, staring resolutely at a stain on the wall. Peter continues, his lips too close to Mitchell's neck, "Young pretty things like you don't come along often enough. Why should Herrick have all the fun?" Copper wafts on his breath and makes Mitchell's eyes water. The stain vaguely resembles a dog. Maybe a sheep-dog.

"Leave me alone," Mitchell gasps, focusing intently on the dog-stain.

Peter snorts with laughter. "Gee, how intimidating," he sneers. Then he drops his voice and presses his lips to Mitchell's ear. "It's cruel, really. Herrick parades you around and shows you off, but won't ever share. He calls you our _little hell hound_ , but we all know you're just his bitch."

Mitchell blinks back a haze in his eyes and tries to swallow, but finds his throat obstructed.

Peter roughly pushes Mitchell's legs apart with a hard thigh and rasps, "One night he'll leave you alone and I'll fuck you in the dark like the dog you are."

The stain wobbles. No, it's not a sheep-dog. It's a wolf. A wolf with it's head thrown back, pleading to the moon.

* * *

Peter eventually follows through on his threats, catching Mitchell deep in sleep, defenseless and confused until it is too late. Peter grunts out a monologue while Mitchell shudders under him. Something about _better than I'd imagined_ and _why do you think we keep you around_ and _thank you_ and _we should do this again sometime_.

Mitchell is too terrified to tell Herrick, but Peter was only the first.

One night, when Herrick catches them in the act--one holding Mitchell down by his hair, pinned to the table, while the other takes him roughly from behind--Mitchell feels a perverse relief because surely Herrick will go into a rage at that. Surely he will punish them, maybe punish Mitchell, and even that small rescue would be welcome.

Instead he slowly takes a seat in the shadows and opens the front of his pants and finishes himself while Mitchell struggles harder.

No one says anything. Only Mitchell's ragged sobs and the scrape of table-legs on the floor break the dark silence.

* * *

After that night, Herrick invites others into the bedroom with them, sometimes with Mitchell's permission, sometimes without. He likes to watch and if he's watching, he prefers a fight. Mitchell hates to give him the pleasure but his body can't help but buck and flail in resistance. When they leave, Herrick comforts him and thanks him and runs his hands over his chest and hips and thighs until Mitchell stops shaking.

He owes Herrick so much--for empowering him, for showing him what it's like to truly live. He doesn't know what to say. All he can do is nod and bite his lip.

One night, the other vampire is younger and less repulsive than usual and Mitchell tries to enjoy it. He moves sensually, murmurs sweet things, and kisses him. They look into each other's eyes and Mitchell thinks he's never seen a more beautiful color, though he can't put a name to it. They even both climax before it's over.

That earns him a beating afterwards. When Herrick's hands grow bloody and sore, he brings Seth in to keep up the deluge while he continues to spit lectures and abuse. Something about Mitchell belonging to him and giving himself up like a slut off the street and other insults of which Mitchell has long grown weary.

Sometimes Herrick brings a human with him, some unwitting soul who finds Mitchell devastatingly handsome and simply can't pass him up. These nights are loud, the pumping of blood ringing in Mitchell's ears, and before he can finish Herrick's voice always cuts through the din, "take her! Take her!" Mitchell's vision inevitably goes white and the next thing he knows, he's buried to the gums in veins and arteries and sinews, and that raging pulse is all he can hear and feel and all he can taste.

* * *

In Mitchell's memory, the First and Second World Wars blend together. His duties and his role remain the same, after all.

In the forties, he becomes vaguely aware that the other vampires respect him more. He's proven himself enough, that he's stronger and more devious. He doesn't fight fair, which impresses them. They can't force him into bed anymore.

Peter tries, though, one night when they are holed up in an apartment in northern France. Mitchell chews through his spinal cord.

No one knows how much time has passed when they find Peter's lifeless body heaped in the middle of the moonlit room. Mitchell is thrust into a dark corner, fingers twisted into his hair and feet kicking desperately at the blood-stained rug. His wretched sobs sound like a wounded animal.

This isn't the first vampire Mitchell has killed, but it's the first he's cried for.

Though the Second World War is largely unmemorable to Mitchell, the Korean conflict sticks in his mind. It marks when Mitchell started sleeping around without Herrick's permission, and subsequently when he started losing track of kills.

He fits seamlessly into their group's bar brawls and one-night-stands. Luke is the loud one, Tom is the polite one, William has a temper, and Mitchell is the funny one. His sarcasm bubbles up, harsh and unexpected, and they accept him. He doesn't stop following Herrick's orders until he meets Josie.


	2. She Was a Dance Teacher When I Knew Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mitchell meets Josie and goes off blood for the first time.

There are a lot of things about withdrawal that they don't teach to innocent people. First of all, it doesn't hit right away. Mitchell enjoys a grace period of almost a week with Josie, learning how to live in a small flat in London, how to sleep on the couch and watch the news at night. He feels good, and a little too proud of himself for quitting, before the pain hits.

It's a blessing that Josie works during the day, because Mitchell spends those hours in various embarrassing states of overwrought emotion. Sometimes he curls in an armchair and wallows in the pain for hours on end, moaning out loud to the empty rooms, as if that could let everything escape his body faster.

The pain lights up every nerve in his body, takes a blunt knife and hacks at his joints. He burns from deep behind his navel to the tips of his hair and the voice he cries out with is weak smoke and ash. He lies on the floor and bangs his head against the linoleum. He bites down on a throw pillow until threads get stuck between his teeth. He sits under the shower and cranks up the heat until the water turns his skin red, even though he can't feel it. He cries countless tears, but they never soothe the fire in him; they just leave him dry and ready to burst into flame all over again.

No matter what he eats, it only makes him sicker and hungrier.

At nights, Josie stays with him. He sprawls weakly on the couch while she holds a handful of ice wrapped in a dish towel to his forehead. She holds his hand and kisses his fingers. Softly, she mutters meaningless things to distract him from himself, telling him about her days, about her students, about her dance partners. She jokes that none of them are as good-looking as Mitchell. Most of her compliments fall on burnt out, hollow ears.

Then there are the nightmares. All of Mitchell's past bad dreams pale in comparison. Images flood his sleep until he can't discern between the demons, the fire, the torture, the fear, the rape, and the endless screams, some of which are his, some his loved ones'.

He remembers those loved ones for the first time in years, as they are dragged kicking and wailing from the darkest shadows of his memory. He hasn't thought about his mother or father in decades, and hasn't seen them in even longer. They must be dead now, and that brings Mitchell more peace than the thought of them seeing their son for what he has become.

He had a brother who made him eat raw potatoes and showed him how to ride a horse. He had three younger sisters and wept to think he never got the chance to threaten their boyfriends or picnic with them on the lakeshore three miles from their old farm. They all believe he died at war.

The nightmares are the worst. Everyone Mitchell loves and hates most kills him and brings him back to life just to choke it out of him again. Then, at the height of his damnation, he kills them all himself, drains them to the last drop even though their blood makes him thirstier and boils in his stomach.

His throat scratches raw every morning from guilt and shouting and tears. Almost two months pass before he sleeps through a night.

* * *

At first, Mitchell doesn't think of Josie as beautiful or kind or funny. She confuses him, more than anything. She says strange things about how he doesn't need to kill people or drink blood. She asks him what he wants to have for dinner, asks him what he thinks of her favorite television show, and asks where he wants to be in ten years. She won't sleep with him for months. It's all new and very baffling to Mitchell.

Her beauty dawns on him the first time he sees her dance. No art had ever played a part in his life before, and he never thought to ask why until this moment. Now, that's all he can ask, with this stunning woman before him, living and breathing something that can't be put into words, explaining things that he's been feeling all his life and didn't even know it.

He wonders why a person would want to live without this clarity. Art must be every question and answer to life, every beautiful and ugly thing a person feels with such strength that he has to tear it out of himself in order to breathe. Did the other vampires know what they were missing?

Mitchell can feel her heartbeat when they have sex. Something in him whines and claws at his ribcage and the back of his throat. He sees her lips move, but all he can hear is blood pumping. It brings him over the edge while he gives a guttural shout and bites through his own lip. He throws himself off her and falls to his knees at the window where he can feel the cool breeze.

Gradually, the deafening pulse fades and he can hear her voice. She slides her body behind his and comforts him and thanks him and runs her hands over his chest and hips and thighs until he stops shaking.

* * *

It happens a lot in public, especially crowds, when Mitchell is surrounded by a dozen people full of pulsing arteries. Josie can tell when they start to drown out his thoughts and memories and his very being, and she snakes a warm arm around his waist and pulls him somewhere brighter, fresher.

One time she takes him through several alleys and side streets and eventually lifts her eyes and shoots each building a bemused half-smile.

Mitchell notices. "It's alright. Sorry about that. I know where we are." And he tells her, and soon they are at a fountain she recognizes and finds rather romantic.

"You're good at that," Josie comments. "You have such a good sense of direction."

Mitchell rubs the back of his neck and shrugs shyly. Josie imagines he would be very attractive if he could blush. "You have a good memory, then," she corrects herself.

He scoffs at that. "Nah. Too much to remember. I've just done it all so many times..." Then he trips dramatically on a crack in the pavement.

Josie giggles. "Shouldn't you have expected that, then?"

And Mitchell grins stupidly, his laughter falling like warm, steady raindrops, and pulls her into a hug next to the fountain.

* * *

Josie returns to her flat one evening to find it dark and quiet. The strip of light which sneaks in from the hallway just illuminates Mitchell, where he sits stiffly on one end of the couch.

Josie swallows, shuts the door softly, and turns on the nearest lamp without speaking. She moves warily, as if Mitchell is some small animal that could bolt for cover at any moment. Or as if he's the cornered predator.

She circles the room so she can see his face. It is hollow. He stares lifelessly at the wall.

For a long time, neither of them moves.

Then Mitchell croaks into the silence, "Why are you here?"

Josie's eyes dart about the room. She smiles weakly. "I ... live here."

Several seconds grind by.

"No," Mitchell says, still hoarse, "why are you here? Why are we ..." he trails off.

"Together?" she offers, perching at the opposite end of the couch.

"Together," he repeats, carefully, as if his tongue doesn't know how to shape the word. "Why?"

Josie doesn't know how to answer, and wishes she could draw him up from this melancholy place. She chuckles hopefully, "well, you're good in bed."

There is no humor in Mitchell's voice when he replies, "I know."

Josie studies him for a long while. The faint lamp-light thrusts coarse shadows on the angles of his face. There is only deep blackness below his brow, where his eyes must be. When he speaks, his teeth flash, a tiny hint of white.

"Are you trying to fix me?" he asks, his voice uncharacteristically high.

"You don't need fixed," she says automatically.

He opens his mouth and closes his eyes and thinks of all his broken pieces.

Josie takes a deep breath. "Did you hurt someone?"

"Not yet."

"Do you want to?"

She almost thinks he won't answer, the silence stretches so long.

"Yes."

* * *

Several years go by in which Josie holds Mitchell's hands and tells him, every day, that he won't hurt people. Something about the good in him. He believes her, at least about not hurting people. He believes because the thought of disappointing Josie is worse than any craving. The thread of trust between them is too fragile, and too precious, and every time he threatens to break it he is reminded again how far he would have to fall, how high she is and how precariously he balances there with her. He doesn't belong, like any child wandering into the weak, too-high branches, but listening to this bird sing before him is worth it.

He drinks in that sound and survives on it for as long as he can muster.

* * *

One night in the 70s, Mitchell gets raucously drunk in a bar full of 20-somethings who think he's one of them. He pretends so himself. Josie is teaching a late class and he misses her, but he also misses being young.

They move to the back room and get high and mourn the loss of the Beatles to the States and a blond boy with scratchy stubble falls into Mitchell's lap and kisses him. Most of them laugh, but a young man in a denim jacket shoves the blond hard against Mitchell. They both topple over backwards off the rickety wooden chair. Denim-Jacket starts calling them names and kicking the blond, who rolls over but can't escape when others join in. Mitchell springs to his rescue, grabbing the front of that denim jacket, and they struggle.

Mitchell's vision goes white. The next thing he knows, he's surrounded by blood and bodies. The blond looks up at him in frozen terror, tears silently running down his cheeks. Mitchell smells urine and blood and bolts before the other boy can say anything.

Forty minutes later, he stands in the shower in Josie's apartment, his clothes strewn in the bath tub around him while he scrubs feverishly at the blood soaked into his button-down. His pants still bear faint stains. The water has gone cold and his clothes are still pink and incriminating when he hears the front door open and close. Gasping out desperate sobs, Mitchell wads his clothes into a corner of the bath, but she is already in the room, staring at him blankly.

He doesn't give Josie a chance to speak before he starts apologizing and crying and begging. She looks mildly frightened, but mostly disappointed.

Josie is over thirty years old. Mitchell will never age with her.

She lets him stay the night, and holds him while he cries, and helps him clean up. The next day they part ways. She tells Mitchell that she loves him and believes in him, but she can't trust him. He doesn't blame her.

Some nights, he holds those words close to his chest where they can keep him warm. Other nights he thinks it's a load of bullshit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And just like that, Josie ends up with her own chapter. (We know she deserves it.) I hope a few bits and pieces are starting to connect and fall into place.
> 
> OH, and one more thing~I'm SO UPSET that I forgot about Casablanca. Just rewatched that episode, and seriously, I wanted to bang my head against the wall for not including it. UGH.


	3. When Mitchell Did Those Twins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of several "last straws."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fought and bit and kicked and screamed the whole way out, but I honestly don't know how I feel about it, so you tell me! I knew something very memorable had to point Mitchell toward sobriety. And Seth did mention twins. 
> 
> I would also like to say, fuck you, Mitchell, for having a heap of emotions that neither of us knows what to do with.

Mitchell gradually migrates north after Josie leaves him. On his way to no specific destination, a few young vampires dig him out and latch on. They follow him without admitting as much.

One night, Mitchell catches Charlie laying it on thick with a girl outside the bathroom of a shady alehouse. He gives her a cursory glance and deems that she must be just a teenager. She doesn't have a purse and clutches a pair of heels in one hand, clearly playing at being older than she is.

Mitchell struts over to the pair and throws his arm around Charlie's shoulders. He says something meaningless and goofy and steers Charlie back toward the bar.

Then he laughs. "I didn't know you liked them younger."

"I'm sixty-seven. They're all younger." Charlie looks mildly disgruntled by the interruption.

Mitchell grins and sticks his tongue between his teeth. "Fair," he says, "but you don't want that one, mate. She's _too_ young. She'll be _missed_."

Charlie eyes him skeptically. Mitchell waves down the bartender. His smile is disarming. Under his breath, he adds, "now, you see the one in the red cardigan with the three empty glasses?" He keeps his eyes on Charlie while he scans the room, and smiles deviously when he sees recognition on his friend's face. "She's come alone for the night. She might be the action you're looking for."

Charlie chuckles. Mitchell gives him a wink and a pat on the back and sets him loose.

* * *

His hundredth birthday approaches quickly. One rainy summer morning in a small town south of Glasgow, Mitchell comes home late, so late it's almost early. He nudges the door softly to avoid waking his three flatmates. He needn't have bothered, it turns out; after a split second he discovers all the lights in the house blazing, and throws the door the rest of the way open.

His housemates are scattered about the room, wide awake and enjoying various brands of beer. Herrick sits among them, smiling and talking animatedly, clutching a mug of tea. Mitchell's jaw drops. He feels his face twist reflexively in shock and disgust, then shakes his head and tries to hide his initial horror.

Herrick sees him first and calls his name brightly. There's a familiar, unreadable glint in his eyes as they look Mitchell up and down. His flatmates join in a welcoming chorus.

"Come and have a seat with us! I was just telling some lovely stories about you!" Herrick pats the empty cushion next to him on the couch.

"I'm--what are you doing here?" Mitchell asks. His eyes dart between his friends, who all seem perfectly relaxed. They are also drunk enough not to call him on his rudeness.

Herrick chuckles and says something extremely mundane about missing him and not wanting to miss a good party.

A shaky breath hisses between Mitchell's teeth.

"I'm so glad you've made such excellent friends!" Herrick adds, leering. He raises his mug and said friends respond with their bottles. "Haven't spent time with our Scottish brethren in ages. Did you recruit them yourself?"

Mitchell's eyelids flutter and he clenches his teeth. "Of course not," he manages. The thought of biting any of these boys makes his stomach turn.

Mitchell gets no help from his flatmates, who think Herrick is a delight and don't notice the tension flooding the room. For now, he takes the seat next to his old friend on the couch, carefully avoiding any physical contact. Herrick finishes two more stories, both of which make Mitchell feel like he is swallowing ice, before the others trickle off to bedrooms and leave them alone together.

Mitchell adopts a keen interest in the chipped button on his left sleeve. He pretends not to notice when he feels Herrick shift beside him.

"We were all hurt when you left, you know."

Mitchell scoffs.

"I've missed you," Herrick continues softly, dripping with sincerity and concern. "Did you hate us that much? After all I did for you?"

Mitchell's stomach tingles with a confusing combination of revulsion and guilt. He can't close his eyes against the great debt he owes this man. "I didn't--it wasn't _you_. It was the _things_. The things we did."

"We?"

Mitchell squints. "The things _I_ did," he corrects. "I couldn't, anymore, not ... they were ..." _vile,_ he thinks.

"The only bad thing you did was run," Herrick says flatly. "But I'm a forgiving man. You mean so much to me, Mitchell, and you're such a good boy. I might be able to give you a second chance."

Of course he should never have left, that's only made everything worse. Shame settles over his shoulders. Mitchell never could take care of himself. He would have been caught and executed in days if it hadn't been for Herrick teaching him how to survive. Then he needed Josie to hold his hand for almost five years--five years he wasted trying to be something he wasn't; five years of self-delusion. His shame intensifies when the wish crosses his mind for someone to take care of him again. He wishes for someone to make all the decisions for him.

He thinks of his flatmates. Mitchell has been the decision-maker in the house for almost a year, and he's corrupted them beyond recognition. They know all the best ways to manipulate a woman and to fight other vampires and to hide a body, all thanks to Mitchell.

"I'm telling you," he hears himself say, "I can't do good things."

Herrick hums contemplatively. "Let me help you."

* * *

The next morning, they sit side-by-side at a rickety kitchen table. Herrick digs into sausage and a finely-crafted cheese omelette while Mitchell nurses a cup of black coffee. For many minutes, the only sounds are the clatter of silverware and Mitchell's foot tapping as it goes haywire under the table.

"We should celebrate. For old times' sake." Herrick rests a hand on his thigh, fingernails curling into the inseam of his jeans. Mitchell's body goes stiff and his breath hitches.

"I'm turning a hundred years old," he replies, acutely aware of the sound of his voice. He shows his teeth in what hopefully resembles a smile. "I've got to--I'm gonna try something new."

He pointedly keeps his eyes away from his lap, where Herrick's fingers tighten briefly before disappearing. Mitchell lets out a puff of air.

"Well, we're not going to find any parties in this old hovel," he says, returning to his omelette. "I think I've got a plan for you."

* * *

Mitchell has actually never flown into Dublin. The last time he saw Ireland, it didn't have a commercial airport. Herrick mentions something about family, but those kinds of thoughts have never crossed Mitchell's mind before, and he doesn't let them do so now.

Herrick checks them into an expensive hotel suite and starts buying drinks before five. The street is lined with pubs and lounges. They don't skip any.

Herrick seems to think every bar has at least one potential bedmate. He tries to push several ladies, and a few men, of above-average looks onto Mitchell over the course of the evening. It takes hours for the alcohol to kick into Mitchell's system, and even then his judgment doesn't wane until after ten. He openly flirts with a blond who looks his age, but after a terse glance at Herrick he excuses himself and ducks into a corner booth.

Herrick slides next to him and points out a tall brunette ordering a drink across the room. Mitchell doesn't look up. That is when an identically tall brunette saunters up to her sister with a cocktail. Herrick lets out a low whistle. "Now you really can't turn that down."

Mitchell presses the heel of his hand to his temple and follows his gaze. Something jumps in his throat. He fishes for another denial, but Herrick is already threading his way through the crowd.

"Pardon me," he says as he sidles next to the women. "I don't mean to be forward, but my friend over there--he's shy, but he seems to have taken a shining to you."

* * *

They make for an impressive threesome, panting and writhing and mussing up the clean hotel sheets.

The girls aren't identical; one has a sprinkling of freckles and the other has huge, full lips which Mitchell puts to good use. He wraps his legs around her shoulders and while she's preoccupied, sinks his teeth under her sister's ear.

He smiles and thinks he might drown here. The girl's faintly gurgled moans send vibrations through his lips, heating his senses. She scrabbles feebly at his shoulders and emits low sounds of protest or lust.

He grunts and loses himself in a mouthful of scalding blood. Every end of him thrills with overwrought sensation. He runs frantic hands over her body as if he could soak up her liquid passion through his pores.

Mitchell can feel the sister's pulse in her very lips as they work his arousal. The edges of his vision grow dark. He gasps in the heady aroma of mingling life and death. His body jerks with release, and his teeth dig trenches across the victim's collarbone.

He wails, a low, wet, inhuman sound, and lets the body slump onto the pillows beside him. The sister looks up from between his legs. She smiles lasciviously and licks her lips. Her pupils, already wide with lust, blow to comical proportions as she takes in the sight of her sister and the blood painted from Mitchell's eyebrows to his heaving chest.

The emotions read plainly on her face; it shutters from lewd to bewildered to horrified, and watching the show unhinges him. Mitchell throws his head back and howls with a sound that can only be wicked laughter. His cheeks ache from a deranged smile.

She screams. He laughs harder at the cliche.

* * *

Mitchell clambers off the bed and stumbles woozily to his hands and knees. Something roars and pounds to get out from behind his eyes as they try and fail to adjust to the light. The room teeters. He feels like he's skidding across the floor.

"Good morning, sunshine!"

Mitchell whines at the sound of Herrick's voice. He turns his head to look around the room and promptly falls forward onto his elbows. Gently, he eases his forehead down until it rests on the carpet. The smell of blood and musk fills his nostrils. "No," he moans softly, stifling waves of nausea.

"I really thought you could hold your blood better than this, dear. We'll have to get you back in shape, after all."

Mitchell growls at that. He scratches at the upholstery of the nearest chair and tries to pull himself up. Dizzy, he glances at Herrick out of the corner of his eye.

"Room service brought breakfast," Herrick goes on cheerily while Mitchell drags most of his body onto the houndstooth cushions. "Hm ... coffee, toast, sausage and ham and bacon. Eggs are a bit _soggy--"_

Mitchell pitches forward over the arm of the chair and vomits.

"... You're lucky you clean up well."

Mitchell's ears begin to ring. Breathing harsh and heavy, he raises his eyes in a glower that would stop a living man's heart. He heaves himself from the chair, holding his head in one hand and throwing out the other for balance.

Herrick quirks an eyebrow but says nothing. This is when Mitchell realizes he is still naked, and he has to clutch an arm around himself to hold in his heaving stomach. "How long have you been here?" he wheezes, and Herrick smirks.

Mitchell pants shakily but there is no fresh air, only flesh and ash and shame. His eyes drift over the matching dead girls draped over the king-sized bed. They both look utterly peaceful, and he is overcome with indefinable longing.

Herrick starts talking again, but Mitchell doesn't listen. He clumsily pulls on a pair of boxers, then struggles for several minutes with pants before giving up and wrapping himself in a towel.

"I'm done," he rasps, and Herrick trails off into silence.

"I'm sorry?"

"I'm done. I'm out."

They look at each other long and hard. Herrick stands up and Mitchell flinches with such violence he almost falls over again. That brings a sneer to Herrick's lips.

Adrenaline urges him to escape. Moving backwards and sideways and trying to keep Herrick in his line of sight, Mitchell staggers into the front room of the suite. His bloody hand slips and trembles on the doorknob.

Herrick has followed him, stalked him, leering and shaking his head.

They hold eye contact for long, despairing seconds. Mitchell can no longer muster a glare. He quavers behind stray locks of hair, greasy with fluids he doesn't want to think about. "I'm _done,"_ Mitchell repeats, his voice cracking. He wishes he could find more words in his reeling head.

Herrick bares his teeth in an unhappy smile. "You'll be back."

"I won't," he answers, too fast.

"You need it."

Mitchell finally gains purchase on the doorknob and wrenches it open. He chokes. "I'm not like--I don't need _blood,_ I don't need _you_ and I don't need ... _that!"_ he gestures desperately into the bedroom. He staggers into the hallway without another word.

"Happy birthday, John Mitchell!" he hears before the door slams shut behind him.


	4. Our Image Can't Be Captured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe it was just me, but something about their interaction in s2 implied a more than platonic relationship between Carl and Mitchell. Ergo.
> 
> HEY! I set up a tumblr account specifically for my fanfiction. Follow me at queenmab-scherzo.tumblr.com ! I will post updates, research, inspiration, and questions and I would love to meet some writing buddies there!

Florence is one of Mitchell's favorite places to visit, even in the summer, when it rains most days. In fact, he's been there so long now that it can hardly be called "visiting." He resolves to look for official housing sooner rather than later. Currently, he's squatting in the shabby one-bedroom that belonged to his first victim four months ago.

Tonight, though, he's looking to drink and relax. The sticky air smells of damp leather and stale bread. His shoes scrape the brick streets while he seeks out the bar with the cheapest cappuccino.

He chooses one with a long name he can't pronounce. A handsome man in a well-cut suit sidles next to him at the counter. Suddenly, someone bumps into Mitchell from behind. He stumbles and catches himself, but a knife clatters out from an inside pocket of his jacket and skids into one of the handsome man's expensive shoes.

He quietly bends forward and returns Mitchell's knife. Mitchell mutters a thanks and the handsome man answers, "Here you go. I'm Carl, by the way."

It's a relief to find someone who speaks English.

"Mitchell," he replies. "John Mitchell. ... I just came in for a drink, I didn't ..." and Mitchell doesn't know exactly how to explain the weapons he carries, so he stops.

"God, that's a terrible Scottish accent, if you were going for Connery," Carl says amicably.

Mitchell's brows furrow in disbelief and mild annoyance. Not that he doesn't get the joke, but really? _Scottish_?

"Will you have a martini, then?" he adds with a twinkle in his eye. Before he can go on embarrassing himself, Mitchell cuts him off. "I can buy my own drinks, thanks."

Carl laughs in his face. "No, God. Did you think I was coming onto you?!"

Mitchell opens and closes his mouth several times, frown deepening.

"That's sweet, honey," Carl adds, "but I'm ... probably too old for you."

Now it is Mitchell's turn to laugh. "Don't be so sure," he mutters dryly, scowling and hunching over his cappuccino. Carl frowns at that, but doesn't press the issue.

He smacks the counter suddenly. "We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot. Maybe we should back up," he says cheerfully. "Where are you from, Mr. Mitchell?"

* * *

Mitchell and Carl cross paths at the same cafe the following week, and again three days later. Mitchell was too distracted before, too flustered, but now he realizes with surprise and excitement that Carl is also a vampire. It's clear from a mile away; he wonders how he missed it that first night in the cafe.

The fourth time they meet, Mitchell doesn't even pretend it's been an accident. He weaves through crowds and street vendors to follow Carl to a tent full of leather jackets for sale and smiles when he haggles with the stubborn woman.

Afterwards, he listens intently while Carl explains the ins and outs of talking down prices on the streets. He'd never had to think about it much, since most of his money went to food and rent. He says something about pickpocketing for a living, and laughs at the horrified look that flashes across Carl's face before he realizes it's a joke.

Carl displays some reluctance to Mitchell's dinner invitation.

When Mitchell tries to kiss him after dessert, Carl turns away apologetically.

* * *

They don't see each other the next day. That night, Mitchell visits a crowded lounge and has too many cocktails and flirts with a waiter named Giovanni until his shift ends.

They barely make it to a secluded alleyway before they fall upon one another. Their hips lock together and Mitchell sweeps his fingers into the young Italian's hair. Their tongues clash between heated lips.

"Can we--" Mitchell is interrupted by his own small moan when Giovanni grinds against him, hard, sending a thrill of pleasure up his spine and a rush of adrenaline. A fight or flight reflex flares in his gut, which he shoves into a savage growl and deepens their kiss. As long as he keeps Giovanni's mouth occupied, he can just as easily picture him with a honeyed British accent.

Giovanni mutters something hopefully seductive in Italian and suddenly Mitchell's back is flush against a wall. A jagged corner digs into his shoulder blade. He gasps, but doesn't seem to get any oxygen. Flooded with claustrophobia, he bucks and yanks his head backwards, only for it to collide painfully with the bricks. His throat spasms with mingling arousal and panic.

Giovanni rakes warm lips and teeth against against the line of Mitchell's jaw, sending white spots to cloud his vision. A high keening protest escapes his nose. "Not this--no--I'm sorry--"

Giovanni looks up and catches sight of Mitchell's horrible eyes, maybe even his fangs-and flings him harder into the wall, forcing all the air from Mitchell's lungs.

The world careens about him. When he can see clearly again, Mitchell finds himself crawling weakly toward the end of the alley. Giovanni has fled.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Mitchell gasps as greeting outside a busy restaurant. His hands open and close on every inch of Carl's clothing he can grasp, flutter over his face and thread through his hair. His eyes are bright and restless and his voice hitches urgently. "I didn't mean to, Carl. Please, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to."

Carl's eyes dart over the staring crowd as it grows around them. He hisses warnings and tries to tame Mitchell's desperate hands. "You're alright, stop. Not here, sweetheart. It's alright. Come on, not here, not in the street."

Carl starts pulling Mitchell away from the bright street lights and curious bystanders, but Mitchell is completely distracted and it takes several minutes to duck around a corner. Carl looks into Mitchell's unseeing eyes. "Did you hurt someone?"

"No, no, of course not," Mitchell flicks his words away like an insect. "No, I just couldn't help myself--"

Carl realizes he doesn't know where Mitchell lives, so he steers them toward his own nearby flat.

"You're sure?" Carl says, not unkindly. He doesn't understand Mitchell's vague pleas.

"No! I mean-- _yes_ , I'm sure. I'm so sorry. I was thinking of you the whole time, really, you're the one I--"

"Did you sleep with someone?" Carl asks gently, without a hint of accusation as he unlocks the door at the bottom of his stairs.

Mitchell freezes suddenly, and a single tear escapes his lashes. He swipes it away so fast it might have been a trick of the light. " _No_ ," he breathes firmly. "I don't--I don't--I _kissed_ him, but I didn't--it felt like my head would explode--"

"Shh," Carl interrupts and tenderly strokes sweaty bangs out of Mitchell's face. "Shh, take deep breaths, now. I know you don't want to hurt me, or anyone."

Mitchell trembles visibly from head to toe. A small hall light reveals that his eyes are ringed in scarlet. Something unexpected and terrible fleets across Carl's mind. "This man--nobody hurt _you,_ did they?"

Mitchell's eyes glaze over, but he shakes his head steadily.

Carl takes Mitchell's face in both hands and looks into young, frightened eyes. He bends closer and presses their foreheads together. This time, when Mitchell moves to kiss him, he doesn't resist. Mitchell's lips shake; the kiss is not especially long or passionate, but afterwards, his breathing starts to relax.

* * *

It takes several weeks of seduction and convincing, but Mitchell gets Carl into bed one warm, leathery night in July. A dead breeze floats through the open window and the lights on the street glow from meters below. They look into each other's eyes and with a pang, Mitchell remembers things; a color he can't put a name to; something he once enjoyed about sex; how Josie looked when she danced.

When they finish Carl kisses him deeply, over and over, and tells him he's beautiful. Mitchell doesn't know how to respond. Several minutes pass in silence, until Mitchell can no longer hold back the tears. Carl pulls him against his chest and doesn't speak.

He never says _thank you_ , and Mitchell wonders if he did something wrong.

* * *

Wearing a ripped T-shirt and underwear, Mitchell stands still before the bathroom mirror, gazing intently at the glass. It reflects an empty, chipped shelf and peeling wallpaper, but never his face. He feels hot tears slip down his cheeks and wonders what he looks like when he cries.

He hears the door creak and watches it open behind him in the reflection. No one is there.

"Carl?" he whimpers, his voice breaking on that lonely syllable.

Mitchell's not sure what he wants--for no one to be there, just like the mirror says, or for Carl to stride in and fix the glass so Mitchell can remember that they are both there and whole and mean something. He gets neither of these things.

"You said I was beautiful," Mitchell finally whispers to a seemingly empty room. A sharp consonant that could be laughter cuts from his throat.

"You are beautiful," Carl insists. His hands are suddenly on Mitchell's shoulders, and he flinches at the touch. Slowly, Carl turns him around and cradles his face in both hands. His fingertips brush Mitchell's jaw and lips and cheekbones and eyebrows, so light that they might not exist, so light that his face might not exist.

Mitchell almost doesn't catch when Carl starts speaking. "Your lips are full and soft, lined with long, dry years. You have a strong jaw, you know. And this perfect dust of stubble. Your brows are striking. Broad and heavy. You're even beautiful when you frown." Mitchell does so now without thinking, and Carl smiles. "See? You get these perfect wrinkles over your nose."

Mitchell sucks in a breath and opens his mouth as if to speak, but Carl presses a finger against his bottom lip. "No. I'm not to the best part. Your eyes. They're deep and dark, but a bright light is buried there, something strong and bittersweet. You should let it out more. I could lose myself in your eyes."

"What color are they?"

Carl considers Mitchell for a long moment before whispering simply, "brown."

And Mitchell throws his arms around Carl's shoulders. His tears sizzle against the cold skin of Carl's neck, and his lips form almost inaudible words into his suit jacket.

"I don't think there are any pictures of me."

Carl grips him tightly. "No one will ever need a photograph to remember you."

* * *

They fall into something like a relationship--that is, they have sex often, and only with each other. Mitchell makes fun of Carl for being old, and Carl takes him to places he's only heard stories about. They walk by an open club playing loud pop music, and Carl sighs and laments the days gone by when young people listened to "good" music. He had attended the premieres of Wagner's Ring Cycle in the 1800s.

Carl teaches Mitchell to speak rudimentary German and Italian. His accent utterly butchers French. Mitchell reminds Carl to enjoy the little things, like eating a cheap panini under an umbrella, laughing with your mouth full, and feeding the crumbs to ducks.

In Venice, Carl talks about Saint Mark and some trivia about a lion and an alligator that is interesting at the time, but not entirely memorable. He also complains about the pigeons. Mitchell agrees. "I can't imagine what it was like with the Coke birdseed."

Carl tilts his head and looks at him blankly.

"You know, in the sixties? Saint Mark's Square? The Coca-Cola logo?" Mitchell prompts.

Carl shakes his head and a smile blossoms on his lips.

There is a beat before Mitchell lets out a raucous peal of laughter. He clutches Carl's elbow for support. "Yes! Finally! Alert the _fucking_ media!" his smile alone could light every street lamp in the square. "We found something Carl doesn't know!"

Carl shoves him playfully and chuckles and never gets a full explanation of the story.

In Fall, they visit the Notre Dame cathedral, and Carl asks if he's ever read Victor Hugo. Mitchell tells him, "I don't know who that is."

Carl looks down at his feet, but Mitchell smiles and shrugs it off and adds, "We should climb to the top, man. Up to the bell tower or something, like the duomo back home."

* * *

Carl has been dry for years, but doesn't seem phased by it, and this fascinates Mitchell. When he thinks about it, he knows he was with Josie for years too, but it didn't feel so long. Not an hour passed where Mitchell didn't think about blood. Those years are painted red in his memory--and so short. Going off blood felt like the blink of an eye, something he tried one night and failed at miserably and never considered going back to.

It feels like he lay safe with Herrick just last night; like Josie danced for him just last week; like a man thanked him for the favor and left him on his knees in the bathroom just last month; like he met Carl ages ago, or just this morning.

He needs a drink.

He preys on young men and women in shady, cobbled alleys, usually in the mid-morning hours while Carl is socializing or shopping or working on that jeweler's sales floor. He prefers young people, who are bound to get into trouble, after all. Sometimes luck strikes and he gets a tourist. They're half-expected to go missing or killed even without his influence.

Mitchell holds back the killing to once every two or three weeks. He waits as long as he can, until a bad dream hamstrings him and reminds him how weak he is. He keeps up the routine during their travels, and when they move to Vienna that Winter.


	5. It's What You Would Do for Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things that last and some that don't.

For the months they are together in Austria, Mitchell thinks he is happy. They travel less, but kiss more. Carl likes to play the piano and Mitchell likes to listen. He talks about the composers--some of whom he met--and Mitchell likes to listen to that, too. When Carl plays Brahms, Mitchell feels like his heart could beat again.

They both get jobs and move into a shabby yet spacious flat. It's full of drafts and rattling windows, but Mitchell takes advantage of the chill by winding himself around Carl beneath layers of blankets every night.

One late afternoon they sit together on the rooftop and share a six pack and watch shopkeepers below close up for the day, sun slanting over their shoulders. They talk about London and Canterbury and Oxford and when Carl tells stories about Dublin, Mitchell listens, but doesn't contribute.

They laugh about the weak presence vampires pretend to hold on Southern England. "Except for Bristol," Carl points out, as though it's quite plain.

Mitchell's eyebrows furrow and he prods for more information. Carl proceeds to tell him the story of Richard Turner, the first vampire to live a double life in England. "He lived in Bristol in the seventeenth century. Set up a life there. Stood for Parliament. That was a front, of course. He traded slaves, too--even that was public."

His life sounded almost like theirs--normal--though maybe with less peeling paint and broken radiators.

"Of course... he didn't give up blood," Carl adds with a wistful tug of the lips. Mitchell chuckles and doesn't meet Carl's eyes.

* * *

Mitchell's secrets last through the summer.

Carl doesn't quite catch him in the act. At first, he doesn't understand what's happening; he thinks Mitchell is cheating on him, but never suspects him of wanting to kill the young woman he's pulled out of the pub.

When he does figure this out, they fight. It's surprisingly violent. Carl shoves Mitchell into trash bins and over curbs. Mitchell spouts obscene mockery and bares his fangs as if he could ever follow through on such a threat.

Carl doesn't technically kick him out, but Mitchell runs and won't go back to him for months. He sleeps in doorways and the back corners of hostels and haunts the alleys at night.

He never did strictly cheat on Carl, but sneaking behind his back to kill people concocts the same guilt.

* * *

Mitchell's riding a two-day binge on blood and alcohol when he staggers into the door of their building, wrecked from the bottom up. His eyes have sunk into dark circles above sharp, pallid cheekbones. Greasy curls swing about his face while he wrestles with the doorknob and bangs an open palm against the frosted glass. When he bellows Carl's name it comes out like some carnal slur.

No one responds.

 _"Please,_ Carl! You're the only thing _left!"_ his knees go out and he collapses onto the stoop. He desperately clutches fingers into carved wood and pushes the top of his head into the door until he can feel the pressure down to his tailbone.

Mitchell can't hear himself howling. His last shreds of self control are coming out of his ears. "I don't want to do this anymore. Don't-- _don't leave me here alone with myself_."

Distantly, Mitchell hears tinkling glass and scraping concrete and shouting, and recognizes English, which clears his head just enough to follow the sounds. His legs wobble, but he makes it unsteadily around the corner of the building. The sight that greets him could make his blood run cold, if it didn't already.

In the middle of the alley, Carl fends off three strangers threatening and shoving him.

They spit a few insults that Mitchell recognizes, but otherwise he only hears gibberish until his addled brain pieces together the vaguely familiar drawl.

 _Wienerisch_. If you ask a tour guide or magazine or book, everyone in Austria speaks German and English. What they don't mention is the throaty Viennese dialect that can throw off even native German-speakers, let alone beginners who spent a century on the British Isles. To Mitchell, _Wienerisch_ is unrecognizable under the best of circumstances.

In its current state, his mind can just barely wrap around English.

 _"You_ pricks need to fuck off. You don't know who the _fuck_ you're messing with."

They all shout at once and turn on Mitchell, laughing wickedly.

"- _-guter Fick_ \--"

"-- _Leck mich_ \--"

_"--Schweinekerl--"_

Mitchell doesn't know a true translation, but their meaning is clear enough. "Yeah, yeah, very fucking schweiner to you too, now get the _fuck out of here_."

The tall blond shoves him in the chest and Mitchell stumbles. He cricks his neck and takes a deep breath, but before either of them can take the offensive, Carl grabs the stranger by the back of the shirt and chucks him into the nearest wall. The other two attackers move to help their friend but Carl whips his face around, and his expression leaves Mitchell stunned and nauseated.

Carl's eyes are black and empty and barely reflect the distant street light. His fangs, on the other hand, shine stark white against the backdrop of the dark alley. The cold fury etched in his features has an excruciating, sobering effect on Mitchell. He charges forward without a second thought.

"No! Get _off_ of him!" He twists his hands in Carl's jacket and heaves him away from the humans, who look taken aback. Mitchell only has eyes for the vampire writhing and hissing in his grip. "Carl, listen to me--"

He responds with a feral growl and lunges for Mitchell, who ducks and forces his friend's back to the wall. Voices still light up the background with threats and curse words, but Mitchell dimly notes that they are fading away.

"Look! Stop! Look at me, Carl--"

" _I'll kill them!_ "

He pins Carl's face between his arms and digs all ten fingers into Carl's scalp. "No! It's not what you want, _stop!"_ Mitchell's voice grows shrill. Carl bucks again and Mitchell continues to beg mindlessly.

They lock eyes and a tense moment fleets between them before Carl deflates, released from whatever frenzy had consumed him. He slumps between Mitchell and the wall and pants for air. They hold each other silently for some time, but neither can stop shaking.

Mitchell sways and his vision blurs and he teeters there dangerously for a moment while Carl scrutinizes him. Then he promptly wraps an arm around Mitchell's waist and half-drags him back to the front of the building and inside.

* * *

"Thank you," Carl says gently, and presses a hot mug between Mitchell's trembling hands.

"Oh, no, it was--don't, it's nothing," Mitchell brushes the gratitude away. "You didn't need me, they couldn't have hurt you."

Carl swallows thickly and squeezes Mitchell's thigh. "That's-- _thank you_ ... for not letting me hurt _them."_

Mitchell shrugs. He sips his tea and it tastes sweet and innocent and burns his tongue. His eyes are bloodshot and his face is haggard, but he flatly ignores any attention Carl tries to give him.

"Did they find out about you?" Mitchell asks insistently and feels his heart clench. He isn't sure if he's worried for Carl or himself. "How would they even know about ..." he swallows, "... if you don't kill anyone?"

"No, oh no, it wasn't that," Carl sighs. "It was--not exactly. They found out about--well, that I'm ... living with a man."

Mitchell's brain goes blank. His first thought is _but I haven't lived here for months_ and then the obvious alternative wipes his mind clean. He stares in silence for a long time at Carl's elbow and can't begin to care that his mouth hangs open stupidly.

He can physically feel the point when all of his thoughts start again at once. They grind against each other painfully and kick away before he can latch onto any.

Carl says _Mitchell, I've met someone_. He says he's sorry, and looks like he means it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched a cast interview on YouTube where Aidan mentioned how hard it must be for Mitchell to have to live with himself all those years, even though he doesn't like himself, and doesn't like what he's doing. I'm paraphrasing poorly but at any rate, it was a heartbreaking sentiment, and that's where some of the lines in this chapter stemmed from.
> 
> Hopefully Mitchell is gradually looking more like the guy we meet in series 1 ...


	6. It's the Beginning of a New Century

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of the times he properly tried to go off blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a hint of dialogue quoted from series 2, ep 3.

A week later, Mitchell has stopped by their flat twice for brief, awkward lunch breaks over tea and sandwiches, and still hasn't met Carl's new lover. They both try not to mention him, but Carl lets slip that his name is Dan and he works all day at a gallery.

Carl listens without outward judgment. He asks Mitchell how he's doing, and accepts the slurred lies and ignores the dilated pupils. Both times they meet, he goes on about the tickets he has for the philharmonic over the weekend.

"What's the program?" Mitchell asks, gazing intently into his soup bowl.

Carl raises his eyebrows in surprise and thinks for a moment. "... an overture, I don't remember which, and a piano concerto. Then Brahms. The third symphony."

"I like Brahms," Mitchell muttered and picked at the table cloth. "He's not so simple. I remember you had to practice it a lot. And then, the feelings in it...they weren't so simple, either."

Carl gapes and stammers a rather meaningless agreement. The rest of their lunch, and especially their goodbye, is more uncomfortable than usual.

Over the course of the week, Mitchell weasels his way into someone's bed every other night and leaves them bleeding out the next morning. He secretly wishes he could find this _Dan_ character alone.

* * *

The weekend of the symphony comes and goes. On a dry but dreary Tuesday morning, Mitchell sags in the doorway of the grey stone building he spent the night in. His legs splay out onto the brick sidewalk while he smokes and watches the passers-by trip over his feet. Every once in awhile, he sniggers without provocation.

After several minutes he realizes the same pair of feet has been planted before him for some time. He looks up at their owner with glassy eyes and smirks.

Carl squats next to Mitchell's knees, cups his chin in one hand, and studies his face with deep concern. Mitchell licks his lips and blinks slowly.

Carl says something, but his voice is muddy and distant. Mitchell rubs his eyes so he might hear better. After a short disagreement, Carl takes him back to their old flat. Now just Carl's. Or is it Carl and Dan's?

As they're unlocking the door, Mitchell realizes he's speaking out loud. "It's not ours anymore, I guess, is it? I'll try not to call it ours. Does Dan still have his own flat, too? Or is he already packed and taken up residence in my place?"

Carl doesn't answer him, hasn't said anything since he pulled Mitchell off that piss-stained stoop. Ever silent, he leads the way upstairs.

For the first time, Mitchell sees Dan's face. They make eye contact in the hallway, blink, and then Mitchell starts cackling maniacally. Carl pulls him away firmly, takes off most of his clothes, and holds him under the shower. It's cold and familiar so he closes his eyes and pretends Carl's hands on his body are still hands that want him.

Mitchell doesn't stop laughing until he's tied securely to the chair.

* * *

 _Six months to do it properly_ , Carl had said. It takes even longer. Carl often stays with him while he's tied to that chair, his body purging the demons of human blood.

On the bad days, Mitchell hurts and screams and fantasizes about tossing Carl out of the window. On the good days, he focuses on breathing in and out and listens to Carl play Chopin or Mozart or vaguely familiar popular tunes. The Beatles remind him of Josie and he weeps and dreams about killing her, but doesn't tell Carl since it's only what he deserves.

When Carl is in the room, he tries to distract Mitchell. He tells stories and plays music and feeds him. When Dan isn't in the house, he unties the knots and guides Mitchell to the restroom. Two months in, he hears a crash and opens the door to find the mirror over the sink shattered and Mitchell staring at a cut on his palm.

Sometimes they leave Mitchell alone in the room. He shrieks and cries out bitter, vulgar threats that echo out windows and bounce off walls and cut back into him and take his throat apart.

* * *

One night when Carl leaves the room, locking the door behind him, Mitchell listens intently. After about ten minutes, he is sure he and Dan are alone in the house. He yells a few obscene insults. He hears a scrape outside the door and relishes in knowing Dan is on the other side.

"I can do things for him you've never even dreamed of."

Silence.

Mitchell barks with humorless laughter. "What am I saying, I already have."

He hears the doorknob jiggle ever so slightly. "You should have seen him that weekend in Paris, the way he bent me over and fucked me dry, he was like an animal. He pulled my hair and left me with these scratches, like a fucking dog. You can't take him like that."

Silence.

He launches into a tirade of filthy tales. He describes a dozen times Carl laid with him, all in sordid, explicit detail. He taunts and brags and even offers Dan a taste, but his only answer is the creak of a floorboard. As he's spewing nonsense, he starts to mix up stories, especially as they grow more dark and twisted. He can't remember which partners he's talking about, but he keeps using Carl's name, anyway.

He recounts a dingy public restroom with racist graffiti on the mirror; recounts broken glass on the floor which ripped the knees of his jeans; recounts gagging violently, then stutters to a stop. The door is half-open. Dan stands in the doorway, not moving or speaking.

Mitchell wishes he could wipe the tear-tracks off his cheeks, but doesn't bother trying to turn away. It won't change anything. He knows that look on Dan's face. He's seen it before.

"Carl is dangerous," Mitchell grates.

"I know."

"You know he would eat you alive without a second thought."

"I'm not afraid of Carl."

"Are you afraid of me?"

"No."

"You should be."

"I'm sorry you think so."

"Would you be afraid of me if I wasn't tied up?"

Dan considers his answer for a long time. "I don't know."

* * *

The six-month-mark comes and goes with Mitchell still tied to the chair. He doesn't argue. He doesn't have the strength. He feels like all the pain and anger have wrung out his insides.

"I apologized to Dan," he mumbles.

Carl turns from the window and watches him. Mitchell becomes hyper-aware of every inhale and exhale. They don't hurt anymore, but they dry out his throat and never feel quite even.

"I want to apologize to you, too," Mitchell continues. "For lying. I'm sorry. I thought I could keep you. I thought, as long as I had _you_ , I wasn't completely bad. And when I did bad things I could go home to you and ... having someone so good in my life and being part of you kind of balanced it out, you know?"

Carl smiles and crosses the room and starts working at the knots behind his back.

Mitchell takes a deep breath and scoffs. "I should have just told you to begin with. Gotten help to begin with. I was just ... it _hurt_ and all I could see and all I could hear was the _blood_. I wanted to pretend I was as good as you. But I was ... weak. And too scared."

Mitchell hears the rope thud against the wood floor and feels the pressure around his wrists dissolve. He pulls his arms stiffly into his lap and rubs at the fading bruises. Carl comes around, kneels before him, and lays a hand on each of Mitchell's knees.

"I don't think you're weak," he says softly. "And you have every right to be scared."

Mitchell smiles wanly and bites his tongue. Carl keeps speaking while he unties the ropes around his ankles. "Please believe me when I say that you're strong and smart and handsome, and you _are_ capable of good things. You need to pick yourself up and learn from this."

Mitchell feels tears sting his eyes. Carl goes on, "and I wish, more than anything, that I could be with you. Truly. But you need to do this yourself because you need to believe you can."

Mitchell nods and wipes his eyes and sighs. "We can't go back to the way things were, can we." It is a statement, not a question.

"I'm sorry," Carl agrees. "You need to take responsibility for yourself. The world is ugly, but you're not. You _can_ do good things. It will be hard. But I can't hold your hand through it. That's not what friends are for."

"What are they for? Kicking each other out?" Mitchell says and a smile tugs at his lips.

"For telling the truth."

* * *

Dan and Carl have remained kind, but grown distant. Their long conversations about classical pianists send pangs of envy and loss through Mitchell's gut. He doesn't have the courage to join them.

They allow Mitchell to stay and avoid talking about how uncomfortable it is to have him in the house. He eats as little as he can but doesn't argue when Carl offers him a cup of chamomile and a hug every afternoon.

He spends the days alone in the house pulling books out of Carl's library, sometimes starting them, rarely finishing them. He spends the evenings eating supper at the same table as Carl and Dan, but feels exposed and out of place, like an open sore that they all wish would heal on its own and go away. He spends the nights on their lumpy paisley couch in the room farthest from the one Carl and Dan share.

One weeknight, almost a month after Carl untied him, he hears Brahms drift from upstairs and resolves to move out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aside from the severe writer's block this was quite a fun chapter to write. I got to watch a lot of Aidan Turner tied to a chair (for research of course) and listen to Brahms piano sonatas (I recommend #3)


	7. A Small Good Deed in the Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mitchell moves back to Bristol and meets George.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's more dialogue here than in previous chapters, so I'm worried it might come out of nowhere...but it's not my fault George wouldn't shut up! I just let them have at it.

It doesn't take long for Herrick to find out Mitchell is back in Bristol. He doesn't show himself in person, but sends Seth to haunt Mitchell for a few months instead. He appears the first time in a shady basement bar. Mitchell has just rescued a girl from the unwanted advances of a teenager who might just be old enough for university.

The boy is hammered, and follows Mitchell out to the street, looking for a fight. He slurs insults and throws a fist out clumsily. Mitchell twists, grabs his hand out of mid-air, and wrenches his arm behind his back. He laughs harshly. "You really need to take a walk, mate. You don't know who you're dealing with."

"Yeah I do, another loud-mouth mick who thinks every girl in the pub belongs to him!"

"Ha! Keep talking, I love jokes!"

The teenager laughed right back. "What are you gonna do, skinny fucking prick? I don't--"

"Yeah, Mitchell, what  _are_  you gonna do? Why don't you  _show him_  what you can do?"

Mitchell spins on the spot, keeping hold of the boy and scanning the alley frantically for the newcomer. When he recognizes the stranger, something begins to pound behind his eyes. Of course it's Seth. His clothes blend with the shadows and he sports a cheshire grin.

"Hey, two on one's not bloody fair--"

" _Shut up!_ " Mitchell barks, yanking the boy's head back by the hair. He squeals and struggles, but stops talking. Mitchell can feel a frantic heartbeat vibrating under his fingers. He blinks and splutters, "get out of here," and gives the teen a good shove.

Seth scoffs loudly. "You're letting him go? You have a perfectly good--"

"Jesus, Seth, can't you let it rest for one night?"

Seth feints, and the kid scampers, which makes him laugh. "... Good point. Not really a story that lives up to  _John Mitchell's_ reputation, after all."

Mitchell's lip curls at that. He doesn't trust himself to answer.

"Just a drunk street kid in a dark alley. You're right. Too easy."

"What do you want, Seth?"

His answer rolls out easily, without hesitation. "I want to go get a story of my own. I suppose I won't be bottling any German soldiers this evening, but if we find the right high street pub--"

Mitchell cuts him off by grabbing his coat collar and thrusting him into a wall. His voice rumbles low in warning. "I don't want to be part of any of your stories. You're pathetic. Leave me the  _fuck_  alone if you know what's good for you." Then he stalks toward the end of the alley.

He shouts over his shoulder, "and mate, you're not gonna get any good stories if you go looking."

Seth begins to laugh and can't seem to stop. His cackling echoes off the dumpsters and fire escapes. Before Mitchell is out of earshot, Seth calls, "Herrick sends his love."

* * *

The morning after saving the werewolf from Seth and his heathen friends, Mitchell returns to the coffee shop. It's crummy and comfortable and familiar. He scowls at the bell on the front door when it announces his presence.

"Be right with you!" a voice calls from the back.

Mitchell removes his sunglasses and takes in his surroundings; the empty booths, the muddy prints layered just inside the door. He leans both elbows on the counter next to the register and cranes his neck curiously, but can't see anything in the kitchen.

When someone finally emerges, it's the werewolf himself, as Mitchell had hoped. He's wiping his hands on a threadbare dish towel. "What can I do for you? It's only, the morning crowd's just left, so if you want-" his voice cuts off when he sees Mitchell and and he drops the towel. His eyes dart fearfully about the room while he splutters. "You! You're--why did--is anyone else-- _you-_ -"

The corners of Mitchell's mouth twitch and he bites his lip.

The werewolf trails off and takes a deep breath. "Why are you here?"

"First of all, I'm alone, and no, I'm not gonna hurt you," Mitchell presses his lips together, failing to hide his smile.

"So why are you here?"

"I'm thinking about moving farther downtown," Mitchell states nonchalantly. "I'm looking for a job at the hospital and I don't want to live so far away." He pulls a menu closer and scans it absently, not really reading. "What's your name?" he asks suddenly, and they lock eyes.

"Like I'm going to tell  _you."_

A little disdain isn't enough to crack Mitchell's hard skin. "Come on, mate."

"What's yours?" the werewolf retorts with some kind of feigned defiance.

It makes him chortle. "My name is John Mitchell. I'm a vampire. I was born on July 29th, 1893. I like Marlon Brando and Dean Martin and  _The Real Hustle_. My mother's maiden name was Callaghan. I prefer lager to ale, but I'm Irish, so don't go spreading that around. And I don't kill people, least of all in public and in  _broad daylight_." He laughs again at the blank, mistrustful expression facing him. "Come on, mate, what am I supposed to call you if you don't tell me your name?"

"I'm not your mate."

"... Then I  _really_  haven't got anything to call you."

The werewolf huffs dramatically and runs both hands through his hair. "Yes. George. My name is George."

Mitchell finally permits himself a triumphant grin. "Well, George, I've got to say I'm pretty unimpressed."

George flushes. He opens and closes his mouth, but can't produce a reply.

Mitchell shakes his head, not unkindly. "With your customer service, that is." He drums his fingers on the menu spread between them.

"You've got to be joking," George says under his breath, as if he's not actually speaking to Mitchell.

"I'll have coffee, please."

George stares at him blankly for several seconds. Looking faint, he says weakly, "He'll have coffee. Of course he'll have coffee. The one time the pot's empty, a vampire wants bloody coffee."

" _Just_  coffee, actually," Mitchell mutters.

George isn't listening. "Look, I was about to tell you, but the morning crowd just cleaned me out. I can make some more, but it'll take a few minutes."

Mitchell cocks an eyebrow.

"Right. What about tea? I can have that up in--"

"No tea, thanks," Mitchell makes a face. "Too sweet."

"... I'll leave out the milk and sugar then, just give--"

"Jesus Christ, would you just put a new pot on?" Mitchell interrupts, frustration touching his nerves for the first time. He takes a deep breath. "I don't mind waiting. We need to talk, anyway."

* * *

Mitchell can't convince George to move out of his flat above the cafe for a few days. Finally, when Mitchell and George are alone in the shop after the morning rush, they look out the window and see Seth and Marco grinning and staring. The four watch each other silently through the glass for countless minutes before Seth says something in his friend's ear and they depart with a mocking wave.

Before Mitchell can say anything, George asks what he should do, where he can go.

"I was serious about looking for a new place," Mitchell murmurs.

George shrugs helplessly and looks into Mitchell's eyes. "I can't stay here."

Mitchell is silent for a long time, then breaks their gaze. "Sleep on my couch tonight," he says quickly.

* * *

Over the next two weeks, Mitchell and George go out for drinks whenever they get the chance. Their first night out, George refuses to sit down and cleans his glasses every three minutes; by that Saturday, when Mitchell has still not mauled him beyond recognition, he settles into an easy routine of complaining and bickering. Mitchell enjoys the company and the fact that he rarely has to talk.

It's the eighth or ninth time they've met up at a pub when Mitchell interrupts George's long, self-deprecating tale about a football mishap in secondary school. "Full moon's coming up, isn't it?"

George stops talking and drops his basket of chips. For once, he does not lament the mess.

"Don't tell me you didn't know, or something," Mitchell snorts.

George's eyes dart about the room furtively. "Of course I know. I just don't want the whole world to know."

Mitchell squints. "Well, technically--"

"All right, yes,  _I_  know,  _you_  know,  _everyone_ knows!" George bursts out so loudly that the girls one table over look over their shoulders with concern. Mitchell purses his lips to hide a smile while George hisses more quietly, "it's just not something I want to draw attention to, okay?"

"There's no reason to be afraid of it if we're just talking," Mitchell huffs, and his grip on his drink tightens noticeably.

"But it's not something you just ...  _chat_ about!"

Mitchell tries to smile and ignores him. "So where do you do it?"

"Do wh-- _no_! We are in  _public_ , Mitchell!"

At that Mitchell jerks to his feet and lunges into George's personal space. George swallows, his throat contracting visibly, mere inches under Mitchell's gaze. Their temples almost touch. Mitchell's voice is constricted and reeks of alcohol and digs its sharp parts into skin.

"I  _know_  we're in public, George.  _I_  can't forget.  _I_  can  _never_  forget. We're out with all these naive, innocent people, surrounded by voices and sweat and blood pumping through hot bodies." George's lip trembles, and Mitchell could stop, the point's been made, but this soliloquy he has lived with alone in his head for so long, it's coming out all the cracks and hydroplaning and he can't reel it in. "Their heartbeats are all different, you know. You see that slag who's almost fallen off her stool at the bar? Her pulse skyrockets every time the bloke in the leather jacket leans in. Loud and clear as day. Every last one of them. And I know how that pulse would taste and how it would feel between my teeth ... and I want it. I  _need_  it. But I sit here and chat with you like everything's normal while my _hands shake_  I'm so hungry and mad and scared. I'm  _scared_  of what I can do. I'm scared of wanting it. I'm scared of not getting it."

He grits his teeth and George stutters around half-formed words.

"So  _yeah_ ," Mitchell sneers. "I'm aware we're in  _public_ , and I can hardly  _stand_  it. Don't complain to me about someone overhearing your petty full moon shit when I have to sit next to them wanting to suck their bones dry  _every night."_

* * *

Mitchell feels guilty for dumping all his drama onto George, and he apologizes later, though it takes him a few days. George understands. He is still reluctant to share all of his feelings and worries and aches and memories of transforming, but when Mitchell offers to help him out this month, he only protests twice. They go down to the isolation room together, Mitchell carrying a change of clothes for the morning.

"Can I hurt you?" George asks suddenly.

"Um."

"Sorry, I mean, when I transform. Can I hurt you? Vampires, that is?"

"Oh, that. Yeah. Just like anyone else. There's no coming back from a werewolf attack." George's eyes drop and Mitchell smiles and cracks his knuckles. "So it's a good job that lock holds you in, mate. It ... does hold you in, yeah?"

George laughs nervously. "It's worked for six months."

* * *

Mitchell has heard a lot of screaming throughout his lifetime. He's learned the timbre of a scream often reflects that which causes it. Fear produces heady, resonant screams that cut between the ears as sudden as surprise. Pain produces sounds twisted raw and punched through with gravel and they hurt to shout and they hurt to hear. Lust produces debauched half-moans that work the lips in a search for words.

He has dragged all of these screams and more and every combination from hundreds of victims, but no torment Mitchell can inflict would ever induce the kind of screams coming from George now. They are the screams of a pain chewing its way from the inside out. They are the screams of a pain one can only inflict on himself.

Mitchell slides down the stained wall and hunches his shoulders around his knees. He runs his hands through his hair until he realizes he's pulling and curls threaten to part from his scalp. He trembles so hard that his muscles string taut and his diaphragm burns with an incurable ache and his teeth chatter but never loud enough to drown out the screaming.

In the morning when the door creaks open and George re-emerges, he stares and Mitchell stares back for a long time, four eyes red for many reasons, and they know something about each other and why they're together.


	8. The Energy it Must Take Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mitchell and Annie and George and the beginning of series 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold, chapter eight, brought to you by Earl Grey and Imagine Dragons.

Mitchell has met people like Annie before. Their eyes take you in, like an embrace, and they have a filter for all your best qualities, so sometimes your faults don't make it through. For that, Mitchell is grateful, because she exudes this unblemished happiness that he doesn't want to burn down. At first, he doesn't even have the heart to tell her how much he hates tea, but eventually he admits in his most apologetic voice that _honestly if it's no trouble he'd prefer black coffee it's just that tea makes him feel ill but if it's a bother don't give it a second thought it's nothing to do with you really you make a terrific breakfast blend_.

Somehow she doesn't take any insult, just breaks into a smile free of judgment, and from then on he's usually got at least three mugs of coffee that he can choose from among the tea.

They find themselves as such now, seated around a coffee table covered with hot drinks and deep in a conversation which left the television behind half an hour ago.

"Well it's not fair, is it, now you've seen me change! What do I get from you?" George rants.

"You see me every day, what do you want me to do, suck your blood?" Mitchell waggles his eyebrows mockingly.

"Very funny. I'm serious, can't you turn into a bat or something?"

"Never tried."

"Mitchell, come on!" Annie says playfully. "What about your fangs, can we have a look at them, then?"

"My _fangs_? You don't want--I mean, no, it hurts and it'll just make me ... remember things," he finishes lamely. Familiar faces flit behind his eyelids, faces wrought with pain and terror and soaked in sweat and blood. Mitchell rubs his eyes and groans. "You're right, okay. But ask me something else. Ask me whatever you want to know. Just no questions about killing."

"What! I thought you said you--you've _killed_ people?" Annie says. "How many?!"

"What the fuck does 'no questions about killing' mean to you?" he snaps, and instantly regrets leaving that stunned look on her face, but he's afraid to open his mouth again.

"Wow, touchy, are we?" George scolds. "Fine, then, tell us about your family. Any brothers or sisters?"

All the air leaves Mitchell's lungs and he thinks briefly that he should have set more ground rules. No questions about wars, no questions about killing, no questions about lovers, no questions about killing lovers, and to the ends of the earth and back no questions about family.

He's afraid that if he thinks about them, his parents and brother and sisters, something inside him will rip open and stain them black. He's afraid that if he tries to thinks about them just once, everything good he has left will pour out between his fingers where he can't hold it anymore. He doesn't want to lose them or break them beyond repair, so he keeps them locked up and safe from his head.

Mitchell's eyes glaze over and George can actually see something behind them shatter. He covers his tracks hastily. "No, of course, I'm sure they're--that was daft of me. Sorry, Mitchell? I'm sorry."

The sound of his name drags his head above the surface and he looks between his friends, lips working around silent words and tongue running over his teeth.

Annie stutters, "Tell us something--tell us why..."

"Your name!" George finishes triumphantly.

"Yes! Good, your--why do you go by your last name, anyway?" Annie asks with obviously forced cheer.

"There are a lot of Johns," he grates. _Herrick goes by his last name._ Fuck, apparently his only ground rule is "no questions, period."

"Yeah, that's, you're right about that," George says quickly. He swallows thickly, glances at Annie, and launches into a story about three Johns with whom he attended secondary school and who earned the nicknames Football John, Guitar John, and Wanker John.

Mitchell stares into his coffee and focuses intensely on George's rambling.

* * *

Mitchell takes great pleasure in serving as eye candy for nurses while he's on the clock. His list of "cons" might heavily outweigh his list of "pros", but he knows he's at least nice to look at. And, as he spends most of his time with George, he can't help but feel he (and his arse) do his friend a favor by attracting extra attention. When a woman is bold enough to strike up conversation, he smiles to keep them interested and lets George do the talking.

There's even one male doctor who goes out of his way to ask Mitchell to restock his patient's towels; whose eyes always stray while they talk; who never hesitates to lay a friendly hand on Mitchell's elbow or shoulder or the curve of his back. Mitchell doesn't mind. When they actually strike up conversation, he likes to count how many times he can distract the doctor by licking his lips. He turns it into a game to distract himself from his appetite and his lust.

It makes George fret. Everything makes George fret, but he feels more obligated than usual to share these particular frets with Mitchell. _I think this is actually sexual harassment. We all had to go through the seminar._

Mitchell laughs it off and doesn't have the heart to tell him just what a high tolerance he has for harassment.

* * *

The first time he sees Herrick at the hospital, Mitchell slips and knocks over a bucket of brown mop-water. He regains his balance, but not without splashing all over himself and cursing loud enough to wake the whole ward. George covers for him promptly and conspicuously. When Mitchell rights himself and looks back up, Herrick has gone.

His knees and his stomach feel weak. The dirty water still dribbles weakly across the floor and under a few empty beds. George's arm appears around his shoulders. Mitchell glares and shrugs him away. "Why is it so loud?" he mumbles.

George leans in to study his face. "It's not ... there isn't ... Let's get you to the gents, yeah? You look like you're about to lose your lunch."

Mitchell always thought it was a stereotype or a cliche to hold a friend's hair back while he hurls. Something no one actually had the time or courtesy to do. Then, when he thinks about it, George is a pretty cliche bloke.

After five minutes of emptying his stomach and five minutes of catching his breath, he pulls himself to unsteady feet out of the stall and leans a hip against the windowsill to regain his composure.

"Who was that?" George asks, guarding the door with his arms crossed.

"What?" Mitchell says dumbly while he casts about in his mind for an answer. "...Vampire. Just a vampire."

"Right, ' _just_.' That's why I had to keep the sick out of your hair while you were bent over the toilet. That's why you can't breathe properly and I can see you shaking from here," George bites. He crosses the room and lays a hand on Mitchell's lower back. His frown deepens when Mitchell stiffens at the touch.

"I'm not--I can breathe fine!" He swats George's hand away. His tries to smile, but only manages a weak curl of the lip. "You're such an old nag."

George looks him up and down, but doesn't relinquish his post between Mitchell and the door. "Okay," he concedes. "Is it someone _I_ ought to be afraid of, then?"

"Well yeah, 'vampire', remember?"

"... I'll admit, you are without a doubt the scariest flatmate I've ever had." They watch each other for a moment, one gaze hard and one soft. "Seriously, can't you give me something? What if he shows up at our bloody doorstep?"

Mitchell snorts and looks at his feet. "Fine. His name's Herrick. He's the one who ... bit me."

George gasps audibly and his voice squeaks in protest. "That's the one-- _he_ \--why haven't you just staked him to next Sunday?!"

Mitchell gapes. "I--that's not how it works. We're friends, or ... It's complicated."

"Oh. I guess. So, for vampires, what?" George stammers, "Was he like, your mentor, sort of?"

Mitchell bends over the closest sink. "That would be a pretty inappropriate student-teacher relationship," he mutters darkly.

"What?"

"Nothing, it's--yeah, he took me in and taught me everything about--"

_Killing? Sex? Fine wine? That's all there really is to being a vampire._

Mitchell scrubs his face. "We worked together for a long time," he finishes. "But he's a git. And he doesn't agree with my new diet."

It's not _new_ , strictly speaking, but if Mitchell thinks about how long it's been, he might begin to think about making up for lost time.

* * *

The night Becca dies ( _the night Becca gets murdered in cold blood_ ) Mitchell can't even heave himself off the floor of the front room. He tries more than once, and he knows his friends want to help him, but sure as he's too weak to do it himself, he's also too cowardly to accept their kindness.

Mitchell spends the night there on the floor. He doesn't bother pulling himself onto the couch for fear of becoming too comfortable. Every time his eyelids droop he digs his fingernails into his thigh, and every time he starts to nod he lights another cigarette.

He thinks about Annie, who doesn't bother with words because tea and coffee get the point across much better. He thinks about George, who guided him out of the hospital when he started crying and got them a cab and took one look at Mitchell's face after Herrick left and promptly wrapped an arm around his shoulders and held him tight for the duration of the ride home.

For one crystallizing moment in that cold, smoky room, preserved under a dawn sky with no sun or moon, Mitchell wants desperately to give a piece of himself back to all the people from whom he only ever takes.

* * *

More than a month later, Mitchell accidentally kisses Annie. Funny, that he has to be almost a hundred and twenty years old before his first _accidental_ kiss. He'd never remotely thought about her that way before. She flirts with almost anyone who can see her, which he finds endearing. He feels like he can be the big brother he left behind in South Ireland.

Actually, Mitchell used to think about kissing George more often than he thought about kissing Annie. Those thoughts evaporated quickly, of course, and he preferred not to remember them.

But he can't even imagine Annie that way. How do you have a relationship with a ghost if you can't touch her, or push her against a wall and shove your tongue into her mouth, or wrap your limbs around her in bed, or feel her heartbeat against your throat?

* * *

Two days after Tully's departure, George finds Mitchell brooding on a corner of the couch with the television muted, trying not to think about the DVD tucked away upstairs, and definitely not thinking about the ones that came before it.

"You need to apologize to Annie," Mitchell says, shifting his eyes up to glower in that bird-of-prey way that could probably make a fully transformed werewolf think twice about taking another step.

George has to catch his breath before answering. "But ... I did! I _did_ say I was sorry, to both of you! She seemed perfectly happy!"

"That Tully bloke _bothered_ her, alright? Just give her a proper apology."

"What for?" George counters before raising his palms in surrender. "Wait--no, don't answer that. Please. Is there anything ... specific I should mention?"

"You're a prick," Mitchell growls.

George sighs. "Yes, that will probably come up. Look, it's not that big a deal. I'll find her at some point and sit her down--"

"It is a big deal."

" _What_ is?"

Mitchell adopts a shrill, half-assed imitation of George's whiny accent. "' _And I bet she loved every second of it!_ '"

"... Right. I definitely got a little carried away."

"She didn't _love_ it."

"No, of course she wouldn't, I was being a stupid prat--"

"She did not _like_ it. It was frightening and uncomfortable and makes you feel like rubbish."

George blinked. "I'm sorry, should I just talk to her now? Is this something she told you?"

"She didn't have to tell me."

George swallows and exhales into the awkward silence. He hears that sentence with a dozen different meanings, each making him more uneasy than the last. Mitchell zips up his sweater and hunches further into the couch, his eyes shadowed steel.

George clears his throat. "I want to apologize to you, too. You know, for--"

"Piss off."

Mitchell's looking at the television screen now, but George can tell his attention is somewhere else, somewhere black and distant. He takes a shaky breath. " ... Another time, then."

* * *

Lauren talks too much. It's like she has a vampire's beginner's manual eternally scribbling across her skull and she's incapable of keeping it to herself. It's like the same book Mitchell read a hundred years ago, but still in rough draft form, without the careful editing and footnotes and contributing authors he accumulated over the years. He tries to flip her ahead to the sobriety chapter but every time she talks he forgets important bits and every time she feeds from him the pages blur together in his mind.

Mitchell's cravings double the more time they spend together, but he forces them down with food and cigarettes and _Hollyoaks_ and Carlings with George. Little things that relieve the knot of pressure in his chest.

Lauren can't cope with the addiction, he sees that. Watching her squirm and whine like an ignorant, indecent, depraved thing makes his lip curl with disgust and always, always the guilt. He can't judge her without judging himself.

On a weekly basis, Mitchell trashes his bedroom and gets hammered and has a good wank in the shower and won't admit these incidents often coincide with Herrick's visits to the hospital. He wishes he had a good excuse, like being a poltergeist, or that this selfish shit only happened every full moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I learned while writing this chapter: 1. There is a Wikia for tea. 2. Like George and Mitchell, I prefer lager to ale. 3. Every time I try to delete something, it comes back in some form or another. Not sure if that's good or bad.


	9. Why Isn't He Getting Better?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mitchell flip-flops.
> 
> Chapter warnings: some dubious consent and non-graphic sexual situations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long wait. Most of the waits will be slightly longer from now on. I had more detailed notes up until the start of series 1, plus now that I'm on summer break I actually get to spend time with my husband. But writing is still happening, just at a slower pace!

There's no apologizing for what he did to Bernie. And Mitchell and George and Annie all know very well that the boy still died, so what did he save, really? Even his conscience aches.

_"We are monsters, Mitchell."_

_One of us is._

He growls and chucks the last empty bottle at the wall. He makes the decision to go back while he's drunk, but he sticks by it after sobering up.

* * *

Seth is no threat and never was. Especially with Mitchell around and collecting attention, Seth is just one more person who gives it to him.

Lauren still attracts some attention of her own, though, and understandably so, considering she's novel and young and cute and easy.

One afternoon Herrick sits at the far end of the table in a back room, discussing a mark with James. Mitchell slouches in a rickety seat, his calves propped on the table corner while he idly carves music-notes into the wood surface, waiting for his cue. Before Herrick can inquire after hospital access, Lauren bursts through the door. Seth is on her heels, his sneer visible all the way across the room.

She approaches Herrick, purring a greeting and a smile, and doesn't stop until she's almost on top of his lap. Mitchell's ears don't seem to be working but he can practically feel them steam. Seth's eyes linger below Lauren's waist and he runs a fingernail down the small of her back.

Mitchell blinks and realizes he's biting down painfully on his tongue. He cracks his jaw and pulls a lip between his teeth and kicks his feet off the table. He scowls something red and hot between the three of them.

Lauren slaps Seth's hand away and leans her thigh against Herrick's. She bends over and whispers something low in his ear. He murmurs something back. His knuckles around her wrist are white, but she doesn't protest.

Mitchell swallows hard and returns his intense gaze to the scribbled table top. He dots a note with the butt of his cigarette and blocks everything else out until Seth and James follow Lauren swaying from the room.

Slowly, Mitchell raises his glare just enough to see Herrick watching him. He clenches his jaw to stop it from shaking, stands, and makes his way around the corner of the table. He's hyper-aware of his limbs. Something about his usual swagger feels stiff and stringy and impossible.

Herrick drawls something like hot syrup and Mitchell wants to know why Lauren? and thinks she'd be so much better off a nobody, someone Herrick forgets, or asks to fetch him more wine before sending her away. All he says out loud is "Why Lauren?" and Herrick says "I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do," Mitchell shakes his head and slides onto the edge of the table. His feet tangle underneath Herrick's chair. "She's so young. She's not--she doesn't know any better."

Herrick briefly inspects Mitchell from head to toe, his expression unreadable.

"The way you know better?"

Mitchell's eyes snap up. He searches Herrick's face-the tiny wrinkles of a smirk and his twitching lashes and the tip of his tongue poking between his teeth.

A fissure in Mitchell's moral center suddenly shifts and locks into place and grinds all the air out of his lungs. He licks his lips and takes a deep breath, holding Herrick's gaze and hoping to hide how hard he shakes. He hooks an ankle around Herrick's and leans close, bracing himself on a thigh.

Mitchell's voice drops an octave and he can feel it like gravel in his throat. " _You know_ I know better."

He hums appreciatively. "Mitchell, from that look in your eyes, I'd think you were jealous."

Mitchell works the curl of his lip into a smile. He notices how Herrick's eyes continually flick down to his mouth. "Maybe," he doesn't trust his voice above a whisper. "Maybe I don't like to share."

"Mitchell, the only other ones I want are my victims. I imagine it's the same for you."

"I don't want any victims," he protests.

"Precisely."

* * *

His muscles shake with the effort when he tries to tear away, but fingers twist into his hair, sting his scalp, and hold him still. Mitchell squeezes his eyes shut but that doesn't hide anything. A pitiful noise bubbles in his throat, trapped there. He digs his fingers desperately into sweat-stained cotton.

"Look at you," Herrick breathes, squeezing his hair and his head tighter between both hands. "You're as beautiful and shameless as ever."

The tears jump from Mitchell's eyelashes at that, because he can feel his guts roiling from a humiliation Herrick won't even let him have.

Mitchell twitches with half-hearted pleasure and half-hearted struggle. This is the best solution. Best for Mitchell to preoccupy him. Somehow in this excruciating way, he can protect Lauren and his friends and humans and everything else if he just keeps himself in between Herrick and his prey.

Plus, it's only fair; Herrick gives Mitchell a second chance, Mitchell gives Herrick the hell-hound routine. He asked for this and more importantly he deserves this, for relapsing with Lauren, for hurting Bernie, for leaving Herrick to begin with, all those decades ago.

Mitchell clutches at the hands wrapped in his hair and whines. At that last, desperate protest, Herrick finishes with a gasp. He offers a breathy compliment and knees Mitchell to the side while he straightens himself.

Herrick drags Mitchell out of the office to face a dozen gawking vampires. The inner circle, Mitchell decides after studying their faces, and the edges of his vision burn with rage. Everything Herrick does is always so carefully purposeful.

Herrick's fly is still down. Mitchell wouldn't have noticed if Herrick hadn't grabbed the back of his head and shoved him to his knees to create some great mocking display. Like he really had to spell out what they'd been doing behind that closed door for the last fifteen minutes.

Mitchell sprawls on the concrete under the weight of anger and guilt and embarrassment. He swipes furiously at his mouth and eyes and the tear-tracks on his cheeks. Over his own pitiful wheezing and retching, he barely hears a voice sneer from the small crowd, "Now John Mitchell is _really_ back."

* * *

"You know, Annie might not have a werewolf's sense of smell, but it's almost a full moon and I know what you're doing. I just can't figure out why you're with _him_ , it's that filthy-"

"I wouldn't expect you to understand."

They look at each other for a long time. Mitchell's face is crumpled and pale and all sunken eyes and bared teeth.

"Is that why you went back, after all? Because you're horny, because you can't get your head out of his-"

 _"Fuck_ you, George. Just stop." He can't keep his eyes open and his voice rubs so raw.

George hesitates. "Does he force you?"

"No," Mitchell answers too fast.

"Then _why_?"

Mitchell thinks about all the reasons and they all graph out so logically and if George is still confused at this point, then Mitchell knows he won't be able to explain it right.

"We can leave. We can run off and find somewhere else, just the four of us, away from all the vampires."

"They'll find us," Mitchell sighs and buries his face in his hands. "We can't, they'll find us, it doesn't matter. They always find us."

* * *

Later, after Lauren and Owen and the _feeding_ room all of Mitchell's beliefs and hopes come crashing down in a curtain of flame. Mitchell is a creature that can only breath steady in black and white, but he broke that balance and now they are spilling together. He knows the muddied grey world forming at his feet can't hold him. But after all that, cracking and popping amidst the fires of failure is the one choice he made that was right; to trust George and Annie with his past and his secrets and his love, and that's just enough light to see by. That's who he can go home to, even though he can't begin to thank them properly.

He tries, which is good, and he can't, which is bad. Trying might keep him in the grey and pull him apart but he's surviving there on tea and tears so he'll hang onto that house as long as he can.

Annie's door and its solidness and the way it belongs to her warms Mitchell from the outside in. It isn't the first time he thinks about death, but it is the first time he thinks about death without his head spinning or choking on fear.

* * *

George knew terror when he held Becca while she bled in his arms and his throat clenched with desperation and he begged for someone to put her back together.

George knew emptiness and grief when Bernie, that small and helpless body, was broken and flung to the concrete by a speeding car.

For a brief moment, George knows relief--sad relief, but relief all the same--when it finally sinks in that Annie has finality, an answer, a resolution.

George knows nothing at all when Mitchell gets stabbed. He forgets every good and bad lesson he ever learned in life. Everything about his body and mind ceases to function. He isn't afraid or sad or surprised. When his mind shifts back into gear, he remembers things; Annie needs to go. Mitchell needs an ambulance.

Mitchell, the best friend he's ever known, struggles and sobs around a mouthful of blood, and only then does George stop and look into fearful eyes and feel something; a cold snap of abject horror in his knees. He wraps his hands around the wound and the stake protruding obscenely from his friend's chest. He holds his breath so he doesn't choke or vomit or scream or all three. Though he has no idea what he's saying through violent static in his ears, he tries to speak. Hopefully his words are soothing. Hopefully his hand running through Mitchell's curls is comforting even though he doesn't have much comfort to give.

God but Mitchell looks so small and helpless and frightened and wrong, because Mitchell is the opposite of all those things and everything would make more sense if their places were switched. George would probably feel much safer if their places were switched.

* * *

Mitchell checks out of the hospital too early. His body is not repaired, his mind less so, but at this point all a human doctor can do is worry and ask too many questions. It figures that it would be safer for Mitchell to wait it out in pain and sickness at home than under the care of hospital staff. Things they don't tell you when you become a vampire.

Beside him, George is solid and warm and half-carries him over their front steps, up the stairs, into Mitchell's room. The image of Annie hovering uselessly at their side melts what's left of his heart.

They settle him on the shabby, unmade bed which occupies most of his small room. They ask if he is comfortable and all he can do is lie because it's as close as he's going to get.

Most of the hours he spends awake, Annie stands sentry with a mug of tea or coffee and talks about the neighbor's springer spaniel or the middle-aged couple with the electric car who moved in opposite or the latest football scores, even though she can never keep his favorite teams straight.

Finally, just once, he wakes up to a dimly lit room and no ghost standing guard. It must be evening, but one lamp casts a reddish glow in the corner above his right eye. George is slouched in the rickety chair there, his feet propped next to Mitchell's elbow, engrossed in a crossword.

When George finally looks up he starts to see Mitchell awake and drops his feet onto the floor. His arm spasms awkwardly, as if he wants to reach out to Mitchell but doesn't know where he's allowed to touch.

Mitchell reaches for him and inhales sharply.

"Are you okay?" George whispers, taking his hand firmly. He eases onto the edge of the bed so Mitchell won't have to twist to face him.

Mitchell's breath hitches again. He squeezes his eyes shut and feels tears drip down his temples into his ears. George is panicking over him, his hand twitching over Mitchell's wound before wiping his tears away and curling behind one ear. Mitchell gasps for another moment, relishing in the feeling of his friend's warm fingers, before opening his eyes to face him.

George looks desperate and utterly bewildered. "What's wrong? You're safe now. It's alright. You're alright."

"I'm not though," Mitchell says, and his voice crawls out from the dark, broken and final. "I'm not, I'm only here because--" He chokes on a sob and shuts his eyes again while tears leave damp puddles on his pillow. His chest spasms and his wound clenches painfully.

George's hands flutter and his words are a string of comforting lies.

"Stop!" Mitchell says, his voice high and sharp. He twines his fingers into the front of George's shirt. "It's not okay, _nothing_ is okay, it's Josie, it was _Josie_ , and I don't--I can't--" he breaks off, his face twisted in pain, unable to speak anymore through an onslaught of tears of which George never imagined him capable.

Baffled, George pulls Mitchell to his chest and rocks him gently. Mitchell weeps into his shoulder and the pressure in his chest is agonizing and perfect.

George asks who Josie was and Mitchell bites down on his jumper and digs his fingernails into his shoulder blades and probably leaves marks behind but George doesn't press the issue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Jesus Christ, what is point of view?! 2) I hope Mitchell isn't too much of a crybaby, sorry.


	10. Aim for the Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mitchell is a piece of deadly furniture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the crummy title. 
> 
> Also, none of the fish names belong to me.

When the barest hint of sunlight finally swirls in the high windows, Nina backs down from the door. Mitchell shrugs off his coat and pushes it to her without a word. When the door opens, the only sound in the basement is its creaking hinges. They ring off the metal until it might be a real echo or it might just be an imprint on the dust and the ears and the silence.

Mitchell hangs back, rocking from one foot to the other. The heat of unshed tears burns in his sinuses. He tries to pass his breathing off as normal while sucking in cold, shaky breaths.

He wants to keep his eyes on George or Nina or Annie but his gaze inevitably slides back into the room, falling on the mass of blood and limbs heaped in the corner. Every time, his insides squirm and his vision sears and he darts his eyes back to someone living and warm and friendly.

Nina and Annie clearly don't want to relinquish their hold on George. Annie fusses over him, searching for injuries even though she knows there won't be any. Maybe she doesn't know there won't be any. Mitchell knows there won't be any.

Nina hovers in George's field of vision, stiff and uncomfortable, unwilling to touch him with anything but her eyes and her silent questions. Mitchell glances at the body over their shoulders and his throat tightens and he immediately looks back at Nina. Her face is etched with a mixture of horror and confusion. Mitchell wants to grab her and shake her and tell her  _it wasn't George who did that, not really, it was my fault._

"Mitchell?"

His eyes drift back over Herrick's body. He squeezes them shut and digs the heels of his hands into them. His head feels so heavy.

"Mitchell? Mitchell!"

He looks up dazedly and finds Annie peering down at him and wonders when he ended up on his knees. He feels a headache blooming behind his right eye. Annie squats next to him and brushes a stray curl behind his ear and hugs him. Mitchell relaxes into the cold, gentle wisp of an embrace.

They pull each other up and when Annie steps aside, Mitchell jumps.

Directly in front of him stands George, dirty and shivering and stiff-limbed, wearing nothing but boxers. He squints, and Mitchell notices his glasses are missing. They stare at each other and breath and don't try to speak. Every cell in Mitchell's body tingles with a sick and indefinable emotion.

It's the same feeling you get when you're in a pub surrounded by strangers, and you all watch this disaster unfold on the news like a hurricane or a bombing or an earthquake in some distant region, and a blanket of detached sorrow and horror and fear lays across the room, and you all feel very affected as humans until someone drops into the silence, "my sister lives there." Your right to mourning is gone and everyone is scrutinizing each other now for being selfish and confused. You feel guilty for that little twinge of pain you just experienced, as if your impersonal hurt mattered.

Mitchell tries to swallow but his throat catches. Instead, before he can change his mind, he flings his arms around George and buries his face in his neck.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"... I'm not wearing any clothes," George replies, his voice cracking.

Mitchell just grips him tighter and resumes his mantra. "I'm sorry, George, I'm sorry."

"I'm fine, I just-it's okay. I'm … I'll be okay," George relaxes a bit and rubs a hand up and down his back.

Suddenly, Mitchell pulls away sharply, just enough to look at George's face. His teeth barely part and his voice is strained, intense, almost inaudible when he says "thank you."

George only pants and nods vigorously and lets Mitchell ease forward again. They hold each other for a long time.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm  _sorry_."

* * *

Annie perches on the opposite end of the couch and blurts, absolutely giddy, "I went to the store today."

Mitchell spins his coffee in his hands and raises his eyebrows.

"Just the little convenience store on the corner, nothing fancy. I couldn't pluck up the courage for anything huge and crowded but, you-know. Everyone could see me and everything!"

Her voice jumps an octave in excitement and Mitchell can't help but smile.

"That's great," he says, holding back a laugh. "Did you buy anything?"

"Tea," she says as if she'd never heard such a daft question. "And milk and eggs, since we ran out right before-- ...well. We ran out."

Mitchell gets ready to say something kind and encouraging when their front door slams open and George surges through, cursing and stomping, followed by a curtain of rainwater. Annie instantly leaps to help him with his shoes and coat.

"... But somehow I manage to move in with the  _one_  vampire who doesn't get along with the lot, so of  _course_  the minute I do  _him_  a favor, I've personally offended the  _rest--_ "

He steps into the light in the living room and Mitchell jumps to his feet, nearly dumping his coffee on a pile of newsprint.

"George, your face!" he exclaims. "What happened? You look like shit!"

"You don't say?!" George's voice adopts that squeaky quality which means he'll have the attitude of a petulant 8-year-old for at least the next fifteen minutes. "No thanks to your bloody brothers and sisters out there."

"Well, I'm sorry mate, but like you said, we're hardly friends. In the long run--"

"Why couldn't you and Herrick just sit down with some biscuits and talk it out, maybe kiss and make up?"

Mitchel snorts skeptically. "...If you'll remember, I sort of tried that, and you called me--"

"Lucky it was a bunch of little hooligans who don't know their right fist from their left. Attacking a werewolf on a main street before the sun even goes down."

Annie returns from the kitchen with a bag of ice, which George snatches from her and holds to his fat lip.

"You vampires are all completely full of yourselves, you know that?"

Mitchell shrugs apologetically.

Before a smile can fully break out on George's face, his eyes suddenly widen in alarm.

"What if Nina had been  _with_  me?" Annie touches his shoulder sympathetically and George continues, "Would they attack her too? … Where is she, anyway?"

"Your room, I imagine," Mitchell replies. "Look, maybe you should cool off a bit before you go up there. You're all riled up, mate. Don't want to freak her out."

George throws his hands in the air. " _I'm_ the freaky one."

Mitchell grits his teeth.

* * *

The mid-day sun would be bright if it weren't for endless murky clouds hanging low and heavy in the sky. Probably no one in all of England is outside, if they can help it. Holed up in their warm living room around the television set, Mitchell looks up from a half-rolled cigarette and asks casually, "Where can you buy a goldfish in Bristol?"

Annie and George look at each other before turning back to him with open mouths and tilted heads.

"You, um … looking for a pet, Mitchell?"

"God, no," he snorts. "It's not for me."

George's frown deepens. Annie stutters, but recovers first. "It's not--why are you buying a goldfish for someone else, then?"

He sets the unfinished cigarette aside and eyes both his friends. "It's not that weird. People have pets."

"Yes, lots of people have pets," George concedes. "People who aren't in any danger of  _eating_  their pets."

Mitchell's face contorts in disgust. "Are you threatening to eat my fish?"

"What?  _No!_  I was talking about  _you_ \--and that's just--I would never  _eat_  …"

Mitchell sniggers while his friend struggles.

"I thought you said it wasn't your fish?!" George splutters.

"It's for a friend."

Annie stops George before he breaks into a conniption and proceeds to map out very thorough directions to the nearest family-owned corner-pet-shop. She offers to join Mitchell, and he can't say no when she cracks a thrilled grin and her eyes light up like that.

George takes the time to calm down, and after plans are made, he asks lightly, "What will you name it, then? Wanda? Nemo? Trevor?" He laughs at his own joke.

"Thought you weren't supposed to name a fish," Mitchell says with a small frown.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Dunno," he shrugs and lights the cigarette. "I heard as soon as you name a fish, it dies."

Annie waves a hand. "Old wives tale."

* * *

Carl needs  _help_. He's in a dark place, a self-deprecating place where every train of thought tunnels back to killing Dan, his love and his life and his soul mate. He came to Mitchell and whether it's right or wrong, it's Mitchell's job to fix that heartless place in Carl. No one should be stuck in that heartless place.

Every time they cross paths, he tries to explain to George why they have to help Carl, but it's hard to put into words. It seems simple to him, but doesn't translate for George. "He helped me get clean," Mitchell offers one night, weary of the argument.

"And that's worked out perfectly, has it?" George accuses, standing over Mitchell with both hands on the kitchen table. "No snags to speak of."

Mitchell groans. "He did  _his_ job right. Jesus Christ, it's not his fault I'm a fuck-up."

"He could be a fuck-up, too!" George doesn't bother to correct him. "You haven't seen him in God-knows-how-long."

Mitchell spreads his hands helplessly and says, "It's only been ten years."

"Ten. Ten years," George nods and laughs weakly. He straightens, places his used mug in the sink, and makes for the staircase. Mitchell rolls his eyes. Just before he leaves the room, George turns and says, "Ten years ago, I was still in school. It's a long time, Mitchell." Then he's gone, taking the steps two at a time.

Mitchell slouches further into his chair and throws his head back.

* * *

"You can sleep in my bed," Mitchell says, swinging an arm haphazardly through his doorway.

Carl looks away and tugs at his ear. "...Oh, Mitchell, I don't know--"

"No, no, not like--you can have the bed," Mitchell says, waving his hands frantically. "I'll take the couch."

"Oh, of course, I'm sorry. But ..." Carl looks back up at him with a weak smile. "I couldn't. You don't have to do that."

"Shut up. It's the least I can do." Mitchell rubs the back of his neck. He pushes past Carl and makes for the stairs, but Carl grabs his elbow.

"Look at me."

Mitchel doesn't. He bites his lip and tries to form all the thoughts swimming through his mind into something coherent.

Not talking about  _them_  is awkward, sure, but the alternative makes Mitchell's chest tighten uncomfortably. If Carl really tries to have this conversation about their lost love, after everything  _else_  Mitchell's lost now, he might just break beyond repair.

Looking back and knowing now they've both spun out of control, knowing they've both crash landed, Mitchell has too many painful regrets and questions and wishes. He has to pretend they aren't screwed-up bastards and he has to pretend there's something to hope for, so he  _can't_  talk about the good things they both built and nurtured and sculpted and ultimately wrecked. There might not be any way to piece his ribcage back together.

Carl gave Mitchell the best gift he's ever received, and that's the memory he has throw over all the rest.

"Mitchell.  _Look_  at me."

He turns, but keeps his eyes trained on Carl's shoes. Carl permits this privacy, but takes Mitchell's hand before saying, "you don't owe me anything."

Mitchell's eyes dart up and search his face.

"Nothing. You understand?"

Mitchell gives a jerky nod.

"Take care of  _yourself_ , won't you?" Carl says.

With that a great huff of air escapes him and he scrubs his face with both hands. "I don't know  _how_ ," he sighs.

"Of course you know how," Carl says meaninglessly. "You're clean. You're not being hunted. You've surrounded yourself with kind people. People who can take care of you when you need the help."

Mitchell tries to pass off a dry sob as a laugh. "There's nothing to take care of."

"You're  _not_   _nothing_ ," he gives a hoarse bark of laughter. "I mean, look at the two of  _us_  now. You don't--you haven't ..."

Mitchell shoots him a wry smile. "I've done worse things than you. I promise."

A long, awkward silence hovers between them where you can almost see it. Mitchell's eyes glaze over as images flicker in his mind. Images of Herrick, Lauren, Josie, Bernie, Becca, the twins, every skeleton, their bones laid out for decades behind him.

He shakes his head and hugs Carl without thinking. " _Fuck_. I'm sorry. This isn't about me."

"But--"

" _God_ , Carl, I'm so, so sorry. If you need anything … I know how much you loved Dan."

After several seconds, Carl hugs Mitchell back. "I loved you, too." Mitchell lets out a shaky breath and Carl adds softly, "I seem to have a funny way of showing love."

He wants to kiss Carl then, but he musters all his self-control and holds Carl tighter and buries his lips in his coat and breathes in slowly.

* * *

"You're a murderer," George states. "There are no excuses. You should be punished, like anyone else."

"And it's that simple for you?"

"I suppose it is."

"Is that what you think of Mitchell, too?"

George is silent for a long time. Finally he says, "That's different."

"Well, explain it however you must," Carl says, his voice low. "But don't you dare lie to him about it."

" _He's_  the one lying and keeping secrets from  _me_!"

Carl nods, because that is true. But Mitchell's also not a  _good_  liar, especially about things he feels hot and to his very core. "He's much easier to fool."

George opens his mouth but stalls, eyes flicking to the ceiling. He turns toward the door, as if he wants to leave, but something else wins a fight inside him and he asks quickly, "How did you two meet?"

Carl raises his eyebrows, as if he'd expected a much more sinister question. "... We were in Italy," he begins, and takes a deep breath. "Had drinks a few times. It was all him, at first, like he seemed to think I expected more out of him. It was cute, but I felt like some kind of cradle-robber." His eyes glazed over and a half-smile quirked his lips. "I mean, I knew he was a vampire, but he was so carefree and full of life. He was electric. And it turned out he was over a hundred, even then, and ..."

"You were in a relationship." George toys with the hem of his polo and keeps his eyes on the linoleum.

"Oh, sorry," Carl breathes. "If he didn't tell you--I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine. I sort of figured--but I didn't know you- … well," George takes a deep breath. "That explains some things, anyway."


	11. You Should Have Said it was for Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It hurts more to fall from high places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit: i switched the order of one scene after rewatching series 2 and finding out i had it practically backwards :)

The door to Mitchell's bedroom hangs slightly ajar. George gives it a gentle shove with two fingers and peers inside, scanning all the corners of the room. He's not sure why he's being so cautious, other than the warning hairs tingling up his arms.

George almost thinks the room is empty, for Mitchell stands so motionless, his shoulders hunched, his body curved into the window and the jaundiced remnants of sunlight. George blinks to adjust to the unnaturally red dimness in the room.

Mitchell doesn't turn around. When he speaks, his voice barely escapes the stuffy shadows. "I met with someone today."

"Yeah?"

"We're really holding things together. The branch."

"I bet," George lies.

"It's under control."

"That's ... a good thing."

George can taste the bitterness of Mitchell's laugh. "It is, right?" George asks tentatively. "So why have you gone all ... Rebel Without a Cause on us?"

Mitchell scoffs and runs a hand violently through his hair and stubbornly refuses to face George. "He called me the 'new Herrick'."

George toys with the doorknob and glances at Mitchell's back. "Aren't you, a bit?"

Mitchell's entire body gives an awkward twitch, as if a string in his spine went suddenly taut. "Don't--"

George can hear him breathing heavily and without any other warning, he slams a fist into the window frame. The glass rattles and the naked bulb in the ceiling flickers precariously.

"Don't _say_ that." Mitchell growls.

George takes a step forward, because _God_ that must have hurt Mitchell's hand, but something else tells him to stay far away.

" _Don't_ say that."

* * *

George snatches a handful of Mitchell's jacket and yanks him around the corner of the bar, keeping him at arms length. Mitchell is like a wet alley cat, spitting and flailing and jerking George's arm at odd angles without any regard for his friend's well-being. George shoves through the crowd as fast as possible, apologizing profusely and rolling his eyes with that expression of "you know how it is. Kids who can't hold their liquor. We've all been there."

The situation makes him want to both laugh and curl up in a bed with six afghans and never show his face again.

The bar churns with a low, embarrassed buzz except for one voice that alights over the rest.

"That's right, get him out of here before someone breaks in his pretty face."

Mitchell roars something far less coherent that might be a vague insult against the speaker's face in return. George barely understands the phrase, "weren't my fault your girl'd rather buy a drink from me than you," but even if it's slurred and borders on nonsense, his point is more than clear.

"Mitchell!" George scolds loudly. The poor bloke trying to start trouble stands up and George's eyes widen because of course he weighs as much as both of them combined. George grasps a hand on each of Mitchell's shoulders, opens the door with a hip, and heaves his friend out onto the stoop.

Mitchell stumbles and sinks clumsily to the bottom step.

It's hard for him to get drunk. He's had a hundred years to build up an impressive alcohol tolerance and if stereotypes are anything to go on, the Irish start with a point-bonus in that department. That said, Mitchell does possess a predilection for substance abuse and George never has the heart to argue when he chooses liquor over drugs or something worse.

The thing is, Mitchell is a fight-picking, I-will-kick-your-arse-if-you-look-at-me-wrong drunk with a pretty dark and mysterious air about his person and an eye for attractive bar-goers, meaning the only looks he attracts are wrong. The last time they got pissed in public, a surprisingly bold 30-something with his tie loosened had tried to buy them both drinks. George spent the evening holding in his laughter, but Mitchell's jaw grew increasingly tight each time the man came back. When he made a grab for Mitchell's ass, George snorted into his pint, but to his shock, Mitchell spun and swung an elbow into the offender's mouth and had to be forcibly restrained by two strangers while George closed both their tabs.

Tonight, no Good Samaritans have offered their service, so George is forced to leave Mitchell alone outside while he pays for their drinks. He takes his friend's head between his hands and looks into his glassy eyes and speaks slowly and tries to make it unmistakably clear the consequences he'll face if he leaves this stoop.

He misses the point entirely, of course. When George comes back outside, Mitchell is nose-to-nose with a lean young man flanked by three hairy friends and wearing a jean jacket that probably went out of style in 1992. Expecting to regret it, George steps between them and begins pushing Mitchell back while addressing the Jean Jacket.

"I hate when he gets like this," George offers desperately, "I really do, he's just having a rough night. I'm so sorry, he doesn't mean it really. I'm taking him home now and _he's going to sleep it off, right, Mitchell_?!"

"Maybe if he keeps his fuckin' eyes in his own fuckin' business!" Mitchell slurs.

George shakes his head as if to say "see?" and by some stroke of luck, the boys settle for a few rude gestures, apparently uninterested in a row with a man so obviously out of his own control.

Mitchell spits at them and wrestles against George's hold on him. He might be strong enough to break free, but he isn't coordinated enough, and the pair manage somehow to leave the musty pub a block behind them before saying anything.

"I think this is the first time a werewolf has ever had to tame a vampire," George deadpans.

Mitchell's tongue struggles around an insolent protest.

"Oh, my bloody God, was a single word of that in the English language?"

" _Fuck_ the English."

"... Yes, of course, silly me," George heaves an exasperated sigh. Under his breath, he adds, "It's a good thing we live with the only person in Bristol who has coffee brewing at all hours of the day and night."

* * *

A few days later, Mitchell returns from a shit shift, throws the front door open carelessly, and stomps the dirt off his boots, humming an abstractly jaunty tune. He's about to turn to the kitchen when movement to the left catches his eye. Annie stills her pacing and looks at him with round eyes.

Mitchell finds his voice first. "Why is there a baby in the house?"

"Oh, Mitchell, bless your heart," Annie says before getting interrupted by a teary wail. She closes her eyes as though praying for patience and rocks the child in her arms. "Where have you been? Where's George?" Annie looks haggard and ready to collapse, but the infant howls as if it could go on forever.

"... Why is there a baby in the house?"

"It's not mine!"

"God, I'd hope not," he grimaces. "I was only gone for a day. What don't I know about ghosts?"

"Oh, shut up. Do you know how to change a diaper?"

Mitchell stares open-mouthed. So many questions hit him at once that he can't even put them into words. Finally he manages, "is that a ghost, too?"

Annie nods and bites her lip. "And it's loud enough to haunt a whole village." She laughs breathlessly at her own joke.

He looks at her for only a moment longer before striding to her side and relieving her of the burden. Annie drops herself unceremoniously onto the couch and fans herself, and Mitchell points out that a ghost baby probably won't need any diapers changed.

"You like babies?"

"Well, no," he scoffs. "I mean, maybe not _no_ , but it doesn't matter." He eases into the side chair, clearing his throat while his knees crack. "He's cute though, right?" he adds, shooting Annie a toothy, open-mouthed grin.

Annie looks willing to argue, but purses her lips in a lopsided smile and shrugs.

Mitchell misses most of her expression, his attention fully engaged by the baby. He coos at it gently and earns himself a streak of snot on his sleave. This makes them both giggle.

Annie throws her arms in the air. "Of course. You haven't _done_ anything and he adores you."

"You're not even solid!" Mitchell squeaks at the child, his voice suddenly all chocolate chips in the treble clef. "How are we supposed to wipe your nose, man?"

Annie leans back and relaxes, considering them for several minutes while Mitchell is so blatantly distracted. "What's got you in such a good mood, lately?"

Mitchell glances up at her and shakes his head.

"Ever since you and George got trashed the other night, it's all sunshine and rainbows," Annie points out.

Mitchell finally looks at her fully, but what he sees is Lucy. More than 20 questions and answers flash through his mind, and his smile doesn't fade.

* * *

The sex is good, though short. Mitchell grinds his teeth together until they hurt and squeezes his eyes shut and ruts in time with her pulse pounding in his ears. He holds his breath to suffocate the monster in his chest. The feather pillow forms to his face when he buries himself in it and screams through his climax.

His body jerks uncomfortably twice, three more times. He pants into the pillowcase and feels the teeth-marks and frayed fabric between his lips. Lucy sits up and he hears words on the tip of her tongue, but he grunts and cuts her off and presses her back into the mattress with a hand on her sternum.

Her mouth clicks shut. She traces a hand down his chest and hip and thigh and back up again and waits. After several minutes, when she's obviously feeling awkward, Lucy tests the silence. "Thank you."

Mitchell lifts his head slightly.

"Would you ... like anything?"

He coughs, but doesn't answer. Stiffly, he rolls onto his back and pulls her against his body and kisses her hair without opening his eyes.

"I can do this, you know," Mitchell murmurs into the dark room, his words locked in the secret of Lucy's dying night-light and Downy-scented comforter. "I can do this with you. You can fix me."

"You don't need fixed," she answers quickly and stares hard at the mirror above her vanity.

He exhales loudly and winds an arm tightly around her waist. She's so small and dark and fits with him so neatly. They breath easily in time. He can't even feel the lingering scar fading below his collarbone.

* * *

At first, Mitchell thinks he is in another nightmare. Fires glitter in every corner, no matter where he turns his head, wavering through the lens of smoke and tears. The air reeks of copper and sour heat. The wood around him pops and flares and flecks of ash sting his cheeks and the back of his neck.

There are faces, mangled and soaked in red; friends' faces, like in all his bad dreams. Mitchell tries to remember how he killed them. He must have, because deep guilty thrusts of pain stab continually into his skull, because there are splinters in his lips and under his fingernails and because it feels like the fire is coming from inside him.

The room and the faces around him blur dangerously, stirring and awakening around him. They slide into his line of sight, warped by laughter or pain or confusion. They eye him hungrily.

Ivan's eyes look up in shades of crimson, wanting to tell Mitchell something and it must be important because his lips are curled there around the words, a threat or an apology, but Mitchell's ears are stuffed with cotton.

His nightmares have never been silent. He thought hearing his victims was bad, but now he looks into their faces and their mouths are twisted and gnarled and the look of the shriek on their lips pounds against Mitchell's ears. He sucks in a breath, and the air scorches his insides. His own throat is torn and tortured around shards of a soundless scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, I did NOT want to delve into the whole "missing scene" business. I thought there would be a couple blips within the series and nothing more. But I also thought this would top out at like 5000 words, and now that just makes me laugh. What. Is. Happening.
> 
> Anyway, you can probably tell this is winding down. I won't promise more than 2 more chapters... But I could also safely guess 3?
> 
> P.S. My husband is watching Being Human with me. We're on the second episode of series 2 and he's also a Mitchell fan, because I mean really, he's a charismatic fucker. Follow me (friendlyneighborhoodhornplayer) on tumblr for entertaining updates.


	12. You Have to Say the Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ways to harm a vampire.

According to myths in almost every European culture, vampires are deathless, dark revenants of an uncivilized era before gunpowder or politics or Christianity or the first werewolf, an era when people believed in things they saw with their own eyes. Vampires suck immortality from innocent humans, kidnapping years out of drops of blood. (For a long time, Mitchell wondered in the back of his mind if drinking is what keeps them alive, and if stopping means suicide. It was one of the many fears that kept him feeding for so many decades.)

Though priests would have you believe the opposite, religion stole a substantial amount of its lore from the vampiric legend and lifestyle. Christianity has always enfolded competing beliefs into its network to strengthen its own agenda. Out of obvious jealousy and fear, they promised a _purer_ everlasting life for partaking in the blood of Christ. This practice, in particular, brought the vampires great amusement.

Their name, "vampire", didn't even arise until the 18th century when a coven in Eastern Europe tired of lurking like meek rabbits in the shadows. People wrote about them, and needed a name for them, and so, over time and through many pens, terms for _witch_ and _thrust_ and _violent_ warped together to define the awful deeds of the undead.

The legends dictate that the only way to kill a vampire is to stab him through the heart with a wooden stake, which drains him of all the stolen blood--or, in some cultures, to decapitate him. In fact, both methods are viable, because a reanimated body is still a body and it only functions if it remains whole.

* * *

Dozens of men and women, unarguably and irrevocably dead, litter that damned funeral home. They all should have been able to stand up and dust off the ash and bits of each other and laugh and walk home. But the only motion left in their limbs comes from Mitchell's dizziness.

His face is hot and wet and he coughs on the fumes of furniture and fabric and flesh. He imagines feeling mortal, facing down mundane fiends like infection and festered wounds and smoke-filled lungs. Every cell in his body shakes with fever and his heart chokes him and tries to pound out of his chest. Calling on unforeseen fuel reserves, Mitchell hefts himself out from under a filing cabinet and away from Ivan's face.

At once he's rooted firmly on all fours, yet also falling away from the floorboards, back and forth, his eyes black and reeling and focusing in and out of an unfathomable convergence.

The spot just above and behind his right ear collides painfully with the cabinet and sound pours back into the world. First, there is a dim ringing from one side, which pulsates across his consciousness and grows into a hellish squeal. Mitchell lifts a shaky hand to his head and it comes away scarlet. Dumbly, he realizes his mouth is hanging open, a string of saliva stretching from his lips to the floor.

The shrieking noise dulls until a different sound, a stranger, sharper keen crests the surface. It takes Mitchell a moment to figure out it's coming from him.

He gasps and holds in his ears and unsteadily takes to his feet. He blinks the background noise away to a soft nag. His gaze roams the room and rests on Ivan, his image clear, then fuzzy, then scratched, then clear again and Mitchell searches for the words he owes the man lying lifeless before him until a beam crashes between them and startles him back to action.

Though his head is heavier than his feet, he somehow staggers safely back to the street. When he's free of the funeral parlor, a wave of cold air washes over him, and he coughs on it. Even as the hoses douse the flames, the flashing emergency lights cast an eerie glow to the cobbled street, and always the eyes of the outsiders bore into them, an eternal light shining on the darkness. Sirens thrum against his skull. Mitchell sinks his fingers into his scalp and pulls and a desperate whine escapes his nose.

"Oh, God, someone got out! He's hurt!"

Mitchell's head snaps up when he hears the voice. A pale, horror-stricken crowd bears down on him and he stumbles away, shaking his head frantically.

"Sir, let me help you. Are you okay?"

Mitchell winces and keeps the dark distance between them and musters his most menacing scowl. "Back up. Back the fuck up. Get away from me."

"What happened? Are you alright?"

"Don't touch me."

"I'm calling an ambulance," says a woman with a phone already in hand.

"Good," Mitchell barks. "You'll need one if you lay a fucking hand on me."

"Sir, please--"

"Back the _fuck_ off, every one of you!" he hurls at them with utter finality. Mitchell is a block away before the woman lifts the phone to her ear.

* * *

It isn't late, but there are no lights in the windows that Mitchell can see from the street. He slinks through the front door, blinking uncomfortably and trying to steady his breathing. The house feels empty and somber and wrinkled. When he shuts the door, it echoes and he knows he is not alone. The deadness in the kitchen betrays Annie's presence. If there is anyone Mitchell can't face now, can't bring himself to look in the eye, it the blessed and good spirit of Annie and he dashes for the second floor without so much as a pause to consider her uncharacteristic, listless state.

The top of the staircase trips him up, but Mitchell makes it to the bathroom without further hurting himself. His knees go out in front of the toilet and his chest convulses and the sharp taste of bile stings the back of his throat but nothing comes out.

With difficulty, he stands up, closes the door, turns on the shower, and looks down at himself, fully clothed and stained with soot and blood. His hands shake uncontrollably on buttons and zippers. It takes an age to remove his jacket and shirts, and by then a cloud of steam hangs low and carries a fuzzy glow around the room. Mitchell waves at it and coughs, still feeling dazed, and catches the mirror out of the corner of his eye. He steps before it, tilts his head, and stares blankly at the solid film of fog concealing the glass.

Before he can reach out to swipe it away, a bout of dizziness rocks him and he stumbles back to the wall next to the shower. There, while a fine, warm mist sprinkles him through the open shower door, he fumbles with laces and tight denim and his vision begins to blur. He doesn't make it to his underwear before he drags himself into the shower on all fours and kneels wearily in the wake of the spray.

His body seizes with bitter, hard sobs. It curls in on itself, his muscles coiling with shock and misery and hate, until his forehead presses into the hot, slippery tile.

Mitchell never asked to survive when no one else could. He remembered all of the people there, the people he herded into that slaughterhouse.

Those weren't faces that society would recognize, weren't faces society would miss. Those faces had their time and that time was past and every decade since was only stolen and secret. And what could Mitchell say for himself, now? The lowest thief of them all? Ivan's eyes would stare into his soul for another century and he wouldn't know how to apologize. He wouldn't know how to forgive himself for stealing all that time. He has so much left to ask, so much sorrow throbbing fierce and caustic under his skin. Only little words surface like _I'm sorry_ and _how_ and _my salvation is your suffering_ , pitiful steel sounds slicing his chest when somehow, without his bidding, they happen out loud.

Eventually, he straightens up and runs his hands through his hair, but his limbs feel dead and he can't bring himself to bother with soap. He drags trembling hands over already-healing wounds and tries to rub away the blood he can find. Otherwise, he does nothing but let the steadily cooling stream of water wash away what it will.

When it grows so cold his lungs start to hitch in protest, he swings to his feet, slipping dangerously, and grapples with the lever for several seconds before the shower shuts off. He peels off his soaked underpants and shivers, but the sight of the clothes he wore that evening makes his stomach turn.

Without so much as grabbing a towel, he opens the door and crosses the hall to his bedroom, overcome by a sudden need to not be on his feet.

" _Mitchell!_ " Annie's shocked gasp cuts the silence. She gapes for a moment before ducking her head and holding up her hands to shield her eyes. "Why--what are you--where are your _clothes?_ "

Mitchell clutches his chest and lets out a huff of air. He opens and closes his mouth helplessly before slamming his door in her face. He swallows a hot ball of shame, trying to forget she saw him, and trying to forget he saw her.

Carefully, he melts into his threadbare blankets, pulling them around his shoulders and curling into a ball. His fingers open and close around one of the flimsy pillows. He rubs his face into the fabric, but he has no more tears to give.

He feels a faint, perverse relief knowing that now, with all of his responsibilities wiped away ( _dead_ ) he can wallow in this bed as long as he needs and when he catches his breath again he can call Lucy and maybe piece something back together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant for this chapter to include the Box Tunnel 20, but then angst!mitchell had hearts to break. And the chapter could be longer, but ending it there is just too deliciously painful.
> 
> In the series, they entirely left out the time period between the explosion and Mitchell meeting Daisy at the bomb-site. And pardon my language (ha), but that bothered me so fucking much. Is there a deleted scene out there that I've missed? Like how the hell did Mitchell get out of there and what did he do afterward?


	13. A Great Man, a Terrible Man, an Orphan-maker, a Heartbreaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dies Irae

"Has he seen the papers?"

"I don't know. When I saw him last night, he was ... I don't know. He wanted to be alone, so ..." Annie's voice trails off.

Fuck the terrible thin walls in this fucking house. Mitchell doesn't want to be part of the world. Let his friends shut up and forget about him. He groans and curls his fingers into the edge of the mattress and squirms uncomfortably in still-damp sheets. He hears feet stomp on the stairs and wills them away to their own bedrooms.

Three sharp knocks on his door. Mitchell pulls the covers over his head and curls his toes.

Two more knocks. "Mitchell?" George's voice, but Annie would undoubtedly be lurking over his shoulder.

Mitchell tries to tell him _no, go away, not now_ , but all that comes out is a muffled, half-drunk moan. George is never one to be easily deterred.

"Mitchell, did you see the papers this morning?"

Mitchell removes the covers from his face just long enough to spit, "I've been in bed, the fuck do you think?" before ducking back under his musty quilts.

There is some awkward shuffling outside in the hall while Mitchell holds his breath and wills his friends to give up chase. He hears papers rustle and something settles against the door. "So, did it--did you know about..." George begins awkwardly. "Have you heard about the undertakers?"

Mitchell sighs and rolls over and his friends clearly aren't moving and he sighs again. He swallows dryly and shouts through the bedsheets, "a fire or summat, right?"

"An _explosion_ ," George corrects him pointedly.

The spot above Mitchell's right ear begins to throb dully, and he wonders if this is a remnant of his head injury or some new stress pain.

George goes on, "There were several ... bodies."

"Well, yeah, it's an undertaker's," Mitchell scoffs.

"Oh, for God's sake," George squawks. A sharp rattle from outside is the only warning Mitchell gets before George throws his door open and strides into the room. "I'm not having this conversation through a closed door."

Mitchell sits up straight and tries to glare but it comes off as more of a lopsided squint against the sudden combined onslaught of natural light and vertigo. The pressure in his skull doubles and he wants nothing more than to lie back down, but George tosses the newsprint into his lap and demands his attention. He groans and pulls himself up against the headboard. The sudden fresh air tingles against his still-naked torso.

"Read," George orders. Mitchell casts him a vile look but has little choice but to comply.

"B. Edwards funeral home ... gas leak. Makes sense." Mitchell shrugs. George crosses his arms and taps a finger against his elbow.

"Fire took under an hour to contain ... workers found thirty-four--" his voice breaks with a dry sob. He wraps his fingers around the base of his skull as if he could squeeze the headache out. "Thirty-four bodies." He takes a deep, shuddering breath and tries to go on, but can't will his eyes to open.

George clears his throat. Mitchell doesn't look up. George kicks the edge of the bed and Mitchell looks up, jostled, chest heaving. Briefly he gets a pungent whiff of copper and his tongue slides across his teeth, but that could have been his imagination.

"What did you do?" George demands.

Mitchell cackles, some high, manic sound that he hasn't heard from himself in years. "What did _I_ do? Why am I supposed to've done something? You're the fucking werewolf. What did _you_ do?"

George throws his hands in the air. "How many vampires are there in Bristol?"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know?" About 40, including himself, last time he counted after a week's meetings. He turns away from the wall of windows--since when does the sun rise so bright?--and glances into the corner over George's shoulder before resting his forehead in his hands.

When George speaks again, his voice is low and curdled. "We both know what those bodies were."

Mitchell hiccups. "Yeah. Dead."

"What really happened?" George enunciates every word, his consonants stabbing at Mitchell's already aching ears.

"Nothing," Mitchell's voice comes out stringy and fragile. "How am--I don't _know!_ "

Gently, as if Mitchell might fall apart, George wraps his fingers around Mitchell's wrists and pulls his hands away from his face.

Mitchell huffs and tries to keep his face neutral. Over George's shoulder he can see Annie picking at the peeling paint in the doorframe. Her eyes flick back and forth between her flatmates and the floor.

Mitchell chews his lip and narrows his eyes and looks hard at George. He can feel his bottom lids twitch. "I wasn't there," he says weakly.

George nods slowly. He coughs, slides Mitchell's cell off of the nightstand, and drops it on top of the newspaper. "You should call Lucy."

Mitchell's tongue goes numb. George exits the room, leaving behind a cardboard cutout of condescension. He closes the door behind him as quietly as possible. Mitchell flips open his phone and studies the last three outgoing calls.

Of course she hasn't picked up. It's early. She's a bloody doctor. They work stupid shifts and do difficult work.

* * *

Annie measures time in pots of tea. She's not sure how to convert clock-minutes to full mugs, but if she ever sat to count them out, she would probably lose her mind.

After one kettle, George has finished stealing the last of their loaf for toast and returned to Sam and Molly. After two more, the lonely anxiety vibrating in all Annie's nerves becomes too much to bear.

Mitchell said he hadn't been at the undertaker's last night, and his sulking manner is by no means out of the ordinary. However, last night's shower that didn't end until midnight, punctuated by intermittent shouting, and the state of the bathroom in its aftermath all suggest a different story.

This morning, George had arrived antsy and curt to bum off breakfast and pick up his post. Upon reading the front page news, Annie felt an instant instinct to hug Mitchell and offer sympathies or maybe a nice brunch in bed. George reacted, astoundingly, by swearing and clattering dishes in the sink and suggesting some pretty unrepeatable insults about the company Mitchell keeps.

At any rate now, after the boys' cold stalemate upstairs and three kettles of tea, Annie thinks if nothing else she can see if Mitchell is still awake. Brunch isn't yet out of the question, in or out of bed.

She takes a deep breath and appears outside Mitchell's door. It's sealed tight and betrays no sign of life. The air hangs deathly still around her, and an eerie red light peeks below the crack in the door. Straining her ears, Annie thinks she might be able to hear labored breathing from inside. The landing smells like an ashtray.

* * *

Mitchell thunders down the stairs a few minutes later, adjusting the collar on his jacket and snatching his keys from a side table while offering Annie a measuredly casual good-bye. He only gets one foot on the front step before creating a commotion.

"What the-- _Jesus_. Oh, _fuck_ ," Mitchell roars, slamming the door so hard Annie can feel the walls shake in the kitchen. She peers warily into the front hall, where Mitchell is frantically rubbing his eyes. "I can't even--Annie, you know where there's a pair of sunglasses?" he asks, leaning in the doorway and winding a wrinkled scarf around his throat. The cap on his head squashes his curls and shadows his eyes.

Annie swallows back her initial nervousness. "I think ... yeah, try the shelves there. Next to the door?" she offers.

Mitchell grunts and disappears again. She can hear him rifling through their things before letting out a triumphant bark. He pokes his head back in. "You seen George?"

"Suppose he's at Sam's--well, _his_ place. I ... don't think I'll ever get used to saying that," she says, forcing a laugh.

The look on Mitchell's face is unreadable, his eyes glassy. "Yeah," he says, and absently rubs a spot on his chest just below his collarbone. "Tonight's a full moon," he adds hesitantly. "What's he doing?"

Annie watches Mitchell spin his cell phone in his hands, then stop to study the screen. "Going to the woods, I think. You two ... haven't talked?"

A sharp-edged, humorless laugh escapes Mitchell's nose. "He's the one up and moved out, right?" He pulls a cigarette out of his back pocket and turns back into the foyer. Annie thinks she hears him mutter something under his breath, something like _fuck him_ , but she probably imagined it.

Then he opens and closes the door roughly, drowning out her farewell.

* * *

Mitchell stands still on Lucy's stoop for countless minutes trying to see through the frosted glass. The faint remnants of a bloody handprint stare back at him from about eye-level. He narrows his eyes and goes for the doorbell and only silence greets him. He takes a step back and leans to look in a window. It's all dark inside the flat.

Could she be working? Did she say something about working? God, Mitchell can't remember his own schedule, let alone whatever shifts Lucy might have mentioned in passing.

He turns, feeling a little dazed, and catches the eye of an unwitting pedestrian. "Oi! You live round these parts?" The poor middle aged woman nearly drops her over-sized purse. "You know Lucy? Doctor who lives in here? You know if she's around?"

Her jaw drops and she looks him up and down. Her nose wrinkles and her eyebrows connect and without a word, she makes a hasty retreat. Mitchell mutters a curse and rolls his eyes. Absent-mindedly, he tugs at his scarf. Every time it slips, it's as if a bee leaves a sharp sting on the back of his neck, despite the day's cloud cover.

Turning back to Lucy's door, he tilts his head and shoots the blood-stains a nasty glare. He pounds on the wood with a closed fist.

At the funeral parlor he meets Daisy, and he can't separate the Hannigan from the Spiteri and if that isn't a spike of ice in his stomach then he's never felt anything.

* * *

"Sorry, but I think you've sat in my seat."

Jim looks up and practically feels his eyebrows meet his hairline. He splutters and fumbles to rip out his headphones or turn off his MP3 player, whichever his fingers can figure out first. He looks back up at the young woman still smiling at him with a quirky grin. His eyes slide lower and he blinks hard before catching her eye again. "Sorry, what? I'm sorry."

She giggles and holds up her ticket between two fingers. "Oh, it's no problem. It's just, my ticket seems to match your seat number. Well, _my_ seat number."

Jim shuts his mouth. How long was it hanging open? "Sorry," he repeats dumbly.

"It's really no bother," she shakes her head and chestnut curls catch the harsh fluorescent light. She raises the ticket again to inspect it.

Jim pats himself down in a frantic search for his own ticket. Her hand cuts across his vision and his heart pounds in his throat. He follows her fingers as they trace his seat number, just centimeters from his shoulder.

"Yep!" she grins. "H-12. Technically that's me."

Swallowing hard and gathering his things haphazardly, Jim shoots to his feet. "Wow, I'm so sorry, really. Let me just get ... out of your way."

She giggles again. It's very distracting. She keeps assuring him that it's no bother at all, but she also doesn't seem keen to let him off the hook. When the space is clear she flops into his seat- _her_ seat-and flicks her fingers in a flirty little wave. He mutters another apology and spins on the spot, looking for an open seat. God knows what's happened to his ticket. He could be on the wrong train, for all he knows.

* * *

The last time Mitchell learned a last name before shagging someone was probably Carl, and that was more thanks to Carl's sense of propriety than any moral judgment Mitchell might possess. And honestly, he'd never regretted it until Lucy's disappearing act.

So he sweeps the streets and sprays the alleyways with her name and snarls like a rabid thing in the faces of passers-by and thinks how he can't wait to read what the papers say about the Steve the coroner. Stopping traffic with every step, Daisy looks seconds away from snapping necks. An offensively cheerful couple makes the mistake of holding hands in front of her and Mitchell laughs wickedly when she rips them apart and wraps an arm around the girl's throat.

Adrenaline floods from his eyes to his fingertips. Mitchell cranks the boy's arm behind his back and slams him face-first into a wall.

"Do you love her?" Daisy's voice is a bandsaw on dry wood. "You do? You love her?" She tightens her hold. "Do you want to save her?"

Mitchell grinds the boy's cheek into the bricks and whines in his ear and licks a hot stripe up the side of his neck. His cheeks hurt from laughing. "Yeah," he rasps, "Yeah, you love her, and you'd tear your face off to save her."

The boy whimpers.

Mitchell sucks in a long breath through his nostrils. "I'd tear your pretty face off, too."

Behind them, the girl screams, incoherent, muffled, broken, against the crook of Daisy's elbow. And the boy flails in Mitchell's arms like a rabid animal before he's put out of his misery. His last twitches of life coil at Mitchell's feet, pressed between shaking limbs and concrete.

Mitchell thought this tragic couple, these young innocents lost were the ones for the scoreboard. They might fill him up and steady his raging guts and balance the numbers for a woman without a surname. But they wriggle and simper like sad toe-trapped squirrels without a stroke of honor for the world and Daisy bangs the little girl's head against the wall and they aren't married and they haven't known each other for sixty-nine days _or_ years and they haven't traveled or hit each other or forgiven their transgressions. She's up and out of the alley before Mitchell can breath in again that surreptitious cologne for anxious, insatiable men.

He catches Daisy's arm and the world spins. The wind escapes him and his lip catches in his teeth and his hair catches in the mortar and Daisy's breath is masking his. There's something unwhole and sharp without peace in their fingertips and the prickles of their skin. He agrees to something, death and greed and sex and killing shots and sin. And deep in his bones he wants to claw out canyons in all the star-crossed bar-crawl grins they pass before their toes catch on the scathing steps of Bristol Temple Meads.

* * *

The cloud of screams is coming home, the day for all humanity to be judged, kicking out windows and swallowing hot oil. Mitchell bathes in that sound. He lives in that sound.

I want to hear you beg me. Me. Beg me for my mercy.

He smiles like a scar or a crater crashed across his cheeks, all cold and out of his control.

Don't run off, don't cry. I'll be gentle if it's your first time. I can see your veins pop when you scream. I thought we were having fun.

Death and nature will be astounded. The whole of creation razed to dust, the shame hanging off a hook in the stars.

There is motion at the opposite end of the train. Mitchell and Daisy both spin in unison like trained hounds, their baying wrought out of ashes and steel. They stare and grin. Go ahead. See if you can run away. Try to escape. It's a game. Try to get out before we catch you.

He smells it and feels it when someone stirs behind him wielding a what, a pocket knife? He welcomes the stabs to his shoulder before twisting the man's head back and tracing his jaw with his teeth. Don't get too close. You might get trapped. Stuck. You might get stuck through. They'll write a book about you, about me, to answer the judgment.

It's all emptiness inside. Nothing marked with nothing, woven in my veins. Nothing drags them nowhere and hell only knows how long they take to recapture Bristol. When they're stumbling on cement and doors and bad wallpaper it's probably his house but there's no easy way to tell.

Mitchell laughs a wicked laugh coated on the edges with hot, sticky blood and he barely makes it up the stairs with his pants on.

And he does not care when Daisy moans and wails and carves Ivan's name into the walls while they share a fiery, delirious fuck in his little hard room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's no such thing as grammar for blood-drunk poets.
> 
> (I won't beg, per se, but if you leave me one review in your entire life, let it be for this chapter. It's weird and it makes me nervous)


	14. Talking About Morality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie isn't around. Mitchell's in poor shape. George is a bamf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! Mild instances of self-harm. Spoilers for series 1 and 2. (Forgot to mention that earlier. Just covering bases.)

From the moment George half-carries Mitchell out of that filthy warehouse, Nina makes it clear she doesn't agree with the decision. For hours afterward, Mitchell is inconsolable and deranged. It breaks George's heart to see him so wretched but at least Mitchell can't see all the times Nina rolls her eyes or shoots George very pointed looks.

It hurts doubly, because George has to admit, Mitchell is pretty miserable company at the moment; he sprawls in the backseat and kicks out a window and smokes and burns holes in the seat and deafens them with crude language. He gets in a shouting match with Nina over who's got it worse. That also makes George feel bad, because they don't even compare, but he can hardly take Mitchell's side right in front of her, especially if he ever wants to have sex again.

The worst occurs when they stop outside the city for petrol. George fills up the car while Nina pays and Mitchell hurls rocks across the parking lot.

When Nina gets back, she looks resolute. "Let's go west."

The men blink at her for a second. Instinctively, George almost turns to share one of those  _has-she-gone-mental_  looks with Mitchell. Then he remembers they're not exactly matey just now and anyway that kind of teaming-up wouldn't sit well with Nina so he does a funny jerk with his head and stares at the windshield of the car.

"... How far west?" Mitchell asks darkly.

"New York fucking city, what do you think?!" Nina retorts. "I don't know, Ireland? Wales?"

Mitchell turns to George, utterly flabbergasted. "Is she serious?!"

Nina looks Mitchell dead in the eye and she knows the answer and that's why she asks the question in a heavy, dry tone. "Well, for Christ's sake, would you rather go back home?"

Mitchell clenches his jaw and his lips twitch.

"We'll go to Wales," George compromises.

"Why is  _she_  suddenly in charge?"

Nina rounds on Mitchell. "Because your track record for decision-making is pretty bloody sub-par!"

" _Ha!_  And your decisions have all been spot on, then? Like dragging George out of the house and forcing him to meet with a former catholic priest who's using  _werewolves_  as  _lab rats_. Real good going, there."

"I can own up to  _my_  mistakes. How about you? I'm pretty sure no matter what they were doing, none of those people deserved to be eaten alive."

"If I hadn't snuck in you'd both still be there and  _you'd_  be bleeding to death in that fucking chamber!"

"And if you hadn't put their backs to the wall, Kemp wouldn't have lost his mind and sent Annie away! You might as well have killed her  _yourself_!"

"Don't-" Mitchell breaks off and seems to choke on his words. He can actually feel the blood run cold in his veins. "Fuck you. You fucking  _bitch_ , who the  _fuck_  do you think you are?!"

"Okay, that is enough!" George bellows. He steps between them and shoves a hand into Mitchell's chest. Mitchell stares at it, then up at George, and his lip curls. "Shut. Up." George orders before he can say anything. "Just shut the fuck up. Cool it, or I swear, I will ..."

"You'll what?" Mitchell taunts. He glances between them. Nina's jaw is set, her eyes narrowed. He looks back at George, whose expression is sick and disappointed and disdainful. Mitchell slaps his hand away and shows his teeth in a wolfish, mocking smile, and says, "we're off to fucking Wales, then."

George turns away. As he passes Nina, Mitchell hears him add softly, "and you just ... come on. That was ... just lay off him a bit, okay?"

"Lay off him?" she laughs, not bothering to lower her voice. "He's lucky we haven't left him on the side of the road."

* * *

Over the next week, they find a place to live. They shop for groceries. They get jobs. George makes sure they've paid for cable. Nina spends late nights in front of the computer, researching Dr. Jaggat, and signs for books when they're delivered to the door. She doesn't smile and her eyes are always tired. Mitchell slouches in shadows and hoardes the television and frequents news radio channels.

One day, a reporter recites the list of victims from the Box Tunnel 20 massacre. Mitchell listens from the kitchen, his eyes glazed over, and spells out each name in his mind, holding his breath until his head hurts. Nina shuffles in the room and he watches her hungrily from behind greasy bangs. He lights a cigarette and she jumps.

"I didn't see you there," she accuses.

Mitchell takes a long drag and doesn't say anything. They glare at each other, Nina with her arms crossed, holding a book against her chest, Mitchell lit from below by the tiny lighter flame. One of them is a predator, though it's not clear which.

He flicks off the lighter. "Weren't you just leaving?" he murmurs darkly around the fag.

"I'll be right upstairs, don't you worry," she replies, her voice dripping honey.

By the next morning, Mitchell has finished a pack and migrated to the front room. When George and Nina come down for breakfast, Mitchell is molded to an armchair and has the curtains drawn tight. He doesn't seem to notice them. Nina hurries through toward the refrigerator, but George hesitates, as if he wants to say something significant.

Mitchell is holding his hands in front of his face, a largely-ignored cigarette dangling between two fingers and quivering madly. He looks transfixed. Flecks of ash flutter between his legs to the floor. Without warning, his eyes dart up and lock onto George's with manic intensity, staring out from between shaking fingers. When George thinks he can't withstand eye contact for a moment longer, Mitchell slowly looks back down at his lap, as if seeing himself for the first time.

"How long has it been?" George asks tentatively.

Mitchell's eyes widen and he looks at George as if he forgot men were capable of speech. "You mean when was the last time I fed," he states finally. "I don't...I can't keep track of the days."

"Why haven't you slept?" George asks.

Mitchell's head jerks and he doesn't answer. He squeezes his free hand into a fist, lowers the burning end of the cigarette, and buries it into his thigh, sending a thin spiral of smoke up from the denim.

George closes his eyes and ducks into the kitchen before he has to watch more.

* * *

_I keep dragging you back from that world. ... I can't risk you anymore. There's Annie to think about, and Nina, and I think you should leave us alone._

George's voice buzzes in his ears and though it sounds tinny and mechanical, Mitchell can hear the resolve packed behind his message.

 _I can't risk you anymore_.

Mitchell collapses against the wall and sinks slowly to the floor. He pulls his knees up and rests his forehead between them, pressing his mobile painfully hard against his ear. He grits his teeth and clicks to replay the message.

 _I think you should leave us alone_.

Mitchell breathes hard and loud through his nostrils. His initial reaction is anger so hot the blood in his veins could warm over. Fire roars from his stomach through his chest and vocal chords to burn behind his eyes. He wants to throw George through a window and cut him apart with the shards. That would show him a  _risk_. He pictures it easily, George's blood running between his fingers while Mitchell roars and curses and spits in his wounds.

Suddenly, he returns to himself and a fuse in him snaps and he gasps as if coming up for air. He tries to claw the violent image out of his skull with his bare hands.

His head snaps back and makes sharp contact with the wall and he realizes he is shouting out loud. He glares at his phone, trembling uncontrollably in his hand, while trying to catch his breath. He shakes his head and blinks rapidly to chase away the anger.

 _I can't risk you anymore_.

George has a right to be afraid of him. Mitchell's afraid of himself, for Christ's sake, so much that his stomach aches with it and sickness rises in his chest and his teeth chatter.

He clamps a hand over his mouth and sucks in tears. He raises his phone again. He replays the message. His body spasms around the mention if Annie, then of Nina.

Shame boils in his joints, all coiled and tense and locked in place. He should leave. George said so himself. He said they would all be better off without Mitchell, probably always would have been. He whimpers and buries his face in one knee until he can feel the denim tilling its pattern into his lips. He chewed through that awful place to save George and Nina and in the end it was George saving him instead, as always. Mitchell can't breath anymore under the weight of what he owes the world.

 _You should leave us alone_.

But Mitchell is a coward and he always has been so he stays there, cemented at the base of the wall, curled up like a coward and whining like a coward and pulling his hair out and chewing his lip and hitting replay again like a coward.

Over the sounds of George's voicemail playing for the fourth time, the walls rattle and the stairs groan and the footsteps around the corner make no effort to mask their noise.

 _Nina. Let it be Nina. Let her sneer and grab me by the collar and throw me out onto the curb and curse my name. I shouldn't be here_.

A pair of feet drags into the corner of Mitchell's vision and he looks up wearily. The skin on his face feels thin nand stretched. George stands over him, watching, his forehead creased with more concern than Mitchell deserves.

George clears his throat. "We heard shouting," he states.

"Sorry."

"Are you okay?"

Mitchell closes his eyes and nods, figuring his crumpled, ruddy state betrays a truer answer, anyway.

George picks at his nails and fills the uncomfortable silence with a few quiet clicks of his tongue.

Mitchell shudders. "George?" He asks. his voice breaks and it makes him cringe. He's grateful that he can't blush. George stills, but doesn't look up. "I don't-- _George_. Why ... Why did you come back?"

"I don't know."

" _What_?" Mitchell's voice rattles, hauled out and scattered with dust. "You don't  _know_?"

"Well, no. That's not it. I mean ... They were going to  _kill_  you. That's why."

"No," Mitchell says, eyes closed. "No, I was going to kill them. I wanted to. I wanted to finish the job. I wanted to kill every last one of them." He licks his lips slowly and carefully.

George looks at his feet for a long while. "That's what Nina thinks," he says noncommittaly. Mitchell studies him silently and wonders if George has always been this stiff and ungainly, or if the werewolf teeming under his skin makes him more self-conscious. Or maybe less self-conscious.

George exhales, a light puff of something that could be frustration or pity or weariness or many things that are hard to keep in but harder to explain. "You should try to rest," George says finally.

"I got your message," Mitchell throws back.

"What? I never--" George cuts himself off and inhales sharply. His eyes grow round and his lips break apart. "Oh,  _Mitchell_ ," he sighs.

"D'you want me to leave?"

"Come on, don't--"

"Does Nina want me to leave?"

"Of course not."

"Liar."

George rubs the tiredness off his face and pulls out a spindly kitchen chair so he can sit and face Mitchell. He leans his elbows on his knees so that they're almost at eye level. Mitchell grips his phone so tightly it might snap and that might not be all bad.

George takes a deep breath. Lets it out and takes another. "I know what it feels like ... to lose control. Better than most people."

Mitchell stares, his eyes just two pricks of light under his shadowed brow.

"I know what you are, and I know what you've done, and I know it's...not nice." George continues, ignoring Mitchell's snort, "living with you, seeing what you struggle with, and then watching how you carry yourself, day in and day out ... my God ..."

Mitchell braces himself.

George holds his gaze and his words are soft but impossible to miss. "You make me want to be better. You  _prove_  that I can be better."

Mitchell's breath hitches painfully and his hand moves to clutch his chest. A tear slips from one eye and leaves a cold, salty trail on his cheek. "I'm not worth all that," he says hoarsely. "I'm not good." George looks ready to argue, so Mitchell cuts him off quickly. "I keep running it through my mind, George, and there's no way around it. I wanted to hurt all those people, wanted to  _kill_  them. I wanted Lucy's blood. I wanted to feel it under my own fingers when that priest's heart stopped beating. ... I cant stop thinking about it, and I know if I got to choose, I wouldnt change a thing. I'd do it all again. Every time."

"Then I'd come back for you every time," George says.

Mitchell swipes at his eyes. The air presses in around him. Between the lines Mitchell reads an unspoken pact, something non-literal but still true, melting between them and etched into the dirty linoleum. The terms are good and kind and might begin to wash out the old bloody contracts Mitchell kept falling back on.

George studies the floor for a few moments. Then he leans down farther and adds firmly, "I live every day wanting to be as strong as you."

"But I'm not," Mitchell whispers defeatedly. His grip on his mobile goes slack. "I'm weak."

"Needing to ask for help doesn't make you weak."

Mitchell closes his eyes, but more tears fall anyway, free and gentle and quiet. He feels George lay a hand on his knee. The gesture is a little awkward, but no less warm for it. For one odd second, Mitchell thinks George is reaching to hold his hand. But then his phone slides from his fingers, and George is eyeing the screen and fiddling with the keys.

"You really should rest," George urges.

"Can't sleep. You go, it's fine."

"No, no, no," George says. "I'll stay with you. Would you ... Like some tea? There's none made, but I can..." he trails off weakly and with a pang, they both remember why there's no tea made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how bout Aidan and Dean at wellygeddon? ;)


	15. Stake Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some past and some present and some future. The anacrusis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep slashing Mitchell in ways no one intended him to be slashed. I don't apologize.
> 
> Also I played Mahler's Resurrection symphony last night, which didn't give me any Being Human feelings at all.. wait.

Arthur wasn't _just_ Mitchell's first kill, but he allows Lia to believe as much. It breaks his heart enough to see his body there, lifeless, without this girl mocking his masculinity or worse, feeling sorry for him. It was hardly a lost love, but that doesn't make the twinge of special nostalgia hurt any less.

Mitchell remembers that Autumn as well as any. It had been a long and uneventful week on the war front, at least for all the major flags. For Mitchell, a flood broke inside and he gave up pretending he could control whatever it was he wanted. He blamed the vampire in him, new and hot, told himself it boiled over all his pent-up desires like maybe it never would have come up before he was bitten. Sometimes he even believed it, but after all, he barely believed in the vampire at the time.

Arthur had more courage than Mitchell. He didn't hesitate to make his feelings clear. For a week while whole countries waited and planned and stood still Mitchell and Arthur rebuilt foundations and shifted tectonics every time the moon offered them the briefest privacy. He could still feel the hard grains of French dirt in his spine, the razored edges of the tall grass slicing his hips and biceps even while it hid the two of them from view.

Mitchell would remind himself that this was normal for soldiers, that they all had urges and needs to take care of while living a thousand miles away from home and surrounded by other men. And, inevitably, with his hair catching in gravel and twigs, he forgot excuses and swallowed starry moans and felt like he could spend his entire existence there in a delicious contradiction on his back under a hot body and cold winds and he would never be unsatisfied.

Mitchell doesn't admit anything like that to Lia. He just says _he was my first_ and she keeps flirting with him and he lets her even though it's obvious and overindulgent.

He looks into his memory of that day, a hot afternoon that the rest of the company spent outside. Arthur slowly sank backwards into that armchair, pulling Mitchell with him by his waistband, unfastened his trousers and grinned. Mitchell grinned back and licked a hot stripe across the cliff of his collarbone and a wave of thirst dried him out from his lips to his lungs. Want stirred behind his navel. The color started to go out of his vision.

Mitchell gasped and threw himself backwards and half-faked a coughing fit. With a mumbled, incoherent explanation, he excused himself from the shack. Even from the fresh air outside he could hear--he could _feel_ \--Arthur's blood pumping. Mitchell knew what he needed and the rage and hunger and inevitability made his eyes water.

When he returned, marginally calmer, he hid a syringe in his back pocket. He nestled again into Arthur's lap and kissed him deeply, as if they could force the sun to set if they stole all its heat between their lips and their tongues. And Mitchell eased the needle into the back of Arthur's arm with a heavy moan and pressed his lips to Arthur's jawline, then his earlobe, then the warm, pale expanse of his neck until he wasn't kissing anymore but _tasting_. He tasted _fire_ and a new level of fear and debauchery and every single day since he's wished he could recall a feeling of pure and unrusted passion.

* * *

"You've felt this way for a long time."

Mitchell sighs and scrubs at his eyes. With the strength of every cell in every muscle, he _doesn't_ want to have this conversation, to commit it to ink and finality. "I don't know, exactly," he says, avoiding her eyes.

"You kissed me," Annie accuses.

" _Annie_." His voice is deep and flat and doesn't beg for argument. But for better or worse, Annie can stand up to that voice as well as anyone.

" _Mitchell_ ," she counters, her smile dipping. "I want to give us a chance. And I deserve the things that _I_ want for once." She pauses for effect and looks him up and down. Then she slides a hot cup of coffee across the table and continues. "I care about you. What are you worried about?"

A huff of laughter scratches Mitchell's throat. "What am I _worried_ about?" What _isn't_ he worried about? "You. Only you. I'm supposed to take care of you, watch out for you, keep you from getting hurt..."

"What better way to take care of me than to be with me?" she says, crossing her arms and looking expectantly down her nose.

" _Christ_ ," Mitchell groans. How do you tell an innocent person that hungry, destructive, malicious things exist in the world? "I'm dangerous, Annie. And I don't want to hurt you."

Annie studies him for a long time, her lips pursed. "Well," she begins matter-of-factly, "first of all, you can't _hurt_ me." She grins and bats her eyes before her joke fades into something more _Burnt Norton_ and dirty fingernails and underlying bass. "And second, I'm stronger than I look."

* * *

The cage feels too small and cramped but Mitchell and Annie still cower right in its center, as if standing an inch closer would contract the werewolf's curse. George's screams grate on Mitchell's ears and make him dizzy and he wishes that sound wasn't so familiar. He stares and his eyes widen, huge and sharp and bitter. The realization strikes him that he's never seen a complete transformation before.

George falls forward, unable to hold himself up, and in tandem, Mitchell's knees collapse as if someone kicked them out from behind. He swallows air, but his head feels light. Suddenly he wishes he was _out_ ; not just out of the cage, not just out of this room full of werewolves, but out of the building, outside, out of every goddamn stifling city so he could fill his lungs with something other than fear again.

George's bones crack and grind audibly, and Mitchell's fingers wind into his hair and tighten there against his will.

He doesn't want to watch. _Close your eyes. Close them. Close your eyes now._ He finds he's chanting out loud but it doesn't help. Somehow his eyes keep staring, hard, his face carved out of marble. David has stared up in open-faced fear at Goliath since 1504 and for centuries people have called him perfect. If that frozen and inescapable terror is perfect then Mitchell knows now without a doubt what perfection feels like.

Something struggles to push out of George's face. His nose twists and stretches to reveal long yellow teeth. Mitchell subconsciously runs his tongue over his fangs and a fleeting desire to use them singes his fingertips like a match held too long, there and gone and startling.

With one last dirty, strangled noise, George falls silent, his vocal chords coming apart and realigning. Feeling the pain George can't vocalize, Mitchell hears a hollow groan climb from his own throat.

 _Close your eyes._ God, he's on his very knees, begging, _choking_ on the brief red silence. Faintly, it's filled with other shouts and howls and whines in varying stages of humanity, but to Mitchell, those are just echoes. George and his plight and his curse wash over Mitchell and there's no room for anything else in his eyes or his ears now, fractured as they are.

George twists and flails. _Close your fucking eyes_. Why can't he listen to that voice?

He can't, though, or doesn't, or has no right to. He watches while the night tears down his best friend just to be rebuilt shoddy and foul and ugly. The images of blood and steel and dead eyes reflecting fluorescent lights shutter in and out against Mitchell's skull. He wraps his arms around his stomach to quell its stormy waves.

And then, suddenly, with a soundless rush, George's eyes lock onto Mitchell's, clasped hard and unrelenting. Those eyes are nauseating and wrong and light fire in Mitchell's when they meet. His lungs open and close on nothing. _You're going to be killed by a werewolf._ He doesn't have to strength to stop it when he pitches forward and empties his sickness on the concrete floor because soaked in those animal eyes are parts that are still wholly and unquestionably _George_.

Mitchell gasps and breaks his fingernails on the floor. Something flutters behind him. Gentle and cool, Annie presses one hand to his forehead and winds an arm around his chest. He clutches her hand and squeezes it against his ribs and can't really feel her fingers and knows she can't really feel his heartbeat, but they both imagine anyway, breathless and smoky and fragile and desperate.

* * *

Supine on his bed with his feet propped on the headboard, Mitchell stares at the ceiling while Annie's questions circle around and around his head. He wants to know, too, what came over him, why he was so afraid to just tell the world about his relationship with Annie. She's sweet and beautiful and perfect. Decades of life and might not have _ever_ been this lucky until now.

There's George, of course, who will tease him without reprieve. He already teases him just for _thinking_ about romantic involvement with Annie. And how is Mitchell supposed to argue when they've lived together so long like brothers and sisters and George has every right not to take them seriously as a couple?

Then there's Nina, and Mitchell can't help but roll his eyes when her name crosses his mind. She can't find out, at least not until the last minute, or at least not from Mitchell. Let someone else deal with her cold accusations. Let someone else argue while she tries to pull them apart and convince every last person in the house just how little worth Mitchell holds.

He sighs and melts into his mattress. He's been sleeping again ever since Annie returned, but doesn't concern himself with the whys. The closer she gets to him, the more likely she is to find out all his rotten secrets.

* * *

George stands in his own living room and stares down a man he _killed_ , a man whose stomach he opened up with his own _teeth_. This shouldn't be happening, whole and palpable and in the open where he has to share its million hurts with Nina and Annie and--

He watches warily and remembers exactly why--for _whom_ \--he faced Herrick alone that night. Gruesome images flash unbidden through George's mind, of things he never wanted to know--things Mitchell never actually told him, but never actually had to. What does it mean now to invite this man, Herrick, in his friend's home? He feels sick with guilt and hates himself as much as this awful, unwelcome guest.

"You should get Mitchell." The words leave George's mouth before he has time to consider if they are true. He doesn't take his eyes off Herrick, or this creature that looks like Herrick.

Annie hesitates, but approaches the bottom of the stairs and does as George requests. None of them know how they could possibly explain this unfairness.

All of Mitchell's worst possible reactions flit through George's imagination; he retches on the floor, beats George bloody, throws Nina out of the house, trashes all their belongings, attacks them all and sucks them dry and can werewolves be turned into vampires? A violent shudder almost brings George to his knees. He tries to collect his thoughts and prepare whatever excuses he can cook up.

But when Mitchell appears, the words in George's head short circuit. The look on Mitchell's face is worse, so much worse, than all the things George pictured. It is crying without tears and screaming without sounds and carved into wet sand that will dry out and collapse on itself before anyone can save it.

George wants to ask for help, to apologize and comfort and explain, but none of that can fix this. Maybe some things, but not _this_ , a grave betrayal without any justifiable cause.

Mitchell tilts on the spot as if a wind is trying to pull him down. George has never seen him look so hollow and breakable. The weather of a hundred years finally shows on his face. Pain, coarse and huge and overwhelming, is packed behind his eyes, eating something away, something real and fragile. George can't stand that look and how he put it there and he wants to bring Mitchell back but all he can think of are stupid questions and it doesn't matter because the only answer he gets is _stake him_.

George could cry in that moment and he wants to fix the thing inside Mitchell that had hope but they're already in the kitchen and snapping a footstool and slipping between each other's fingers. His heart absolutely _rages_ in his chest, straining to be heard over Mitchell, a tempest of crimson and teeth and iron and tides. He's a force of nature, but not the same force George witnessed those weeks ago when Annie died; it's not driven by lust or revenge, not anymore. With every breath, from every corner of the room, all George smells is panic.

The women shout and cry and protest. George can only gape and try to hold himself up.

He knows a hint of the horrors Mitchell suffered at Herrick's hands. Now, as Mitchell's seams rip and his blood-stained voice shatters around their feet, George feels like he might be witnessing those horrors for the first time. He thinks he hears Nina tell him to stop what's happening, but he wouldn't even if he could, because Mitchell and Herrick both deserve this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That last part was one of the VERY first things I wrote for this ENTIRE story. I can't believe it took this long to get there ... because it was quite literally the basis of the whole fic. That scene is crack to me. It makes everything freeze in my chest. Like, hot damn if that isn't one of Aidan's finest moments on screen. ...Now I got myself excited just thinking about it.
> 
> There was a lot of Graham angst and Cara angst (and other general angst) I could have addressed in this chapter, but most of that appeared in the show, anyway. Just watch it again. You know you want to :)


	16. The Vampire Gene is Stubborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tie me to a post and block my ears / I can see widows and orphans through my tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yes, the summary is straight from Mumford and Sons. Check my tumblr for an upcoming post with the "soundtrack" for this fic. The songs I listened to while writing, and the ones that embody this story.

_If all time is eternally present  
_ _All time is unredeemable._

\- T. S. Eliot

 

Mitchell groans into Annie's mouth and it's a weird sensation, _knowing_ he wants something, but not feeling it, physically, inside him. He misses the inescapability of true lust. He would do anything for a spike of passion to punch his breastbone now, for his head and his body to work together again instead of constantly wearing each other down.

Annie tilts her head and their lips soften together. Mitchell closes his eyes and feels Josie's body against his, rocks up into her and drinks in a sensuous dance behind his eyelids.

Annie's teeth brush a line across his bottom lip. Mitchell squirms and curls his fingers into her sweater. Squeezes his eyes shut. He wants, _tries,_ to pour all of his stagnant blood into this moment and this kiss but no amount of effort or bargaining moves anything inside him. For all eternity, every cell in his body stands still and watchful and carved into rock.

He rolls his hips against a shadow and a hope. It flits across his mind that Herrick loiters just upstairs, lurking there on the other side of thin floorboards and a rug. Heat stirs behind Mitchell's eyes and twists his gut and he whimpers. Annie takes this as encouragement, pushes her tongue between his lips and trails a hand down his sternum. Her fingers crawl up under the hem of his shirt like a wisp of tepid fog, and nothing. He holds his breath and clenches all the muscles in his abdomen, and _nothing_.

The floor above and the walls around them creak, just a subtle whisper, but it cracks against Mitchell's ears and makes him gasp. In his head he hears Herrick's voice, _take her_ , _take her_ , and his spine throbs white with arousal until Annie's tongue traces his teeth and brings him back to himself and his eyelids burst open. He yanks his head back and struggles under her, panting. Annie catches his face in her hands and everything about her is soft and understanding. They look at each other and Mitchell regains some balance.

Annie's eyes widen bright and she offers a real smile, enveloping him with unmistakable forgiveness. His jaw tightens. That forgiveness lies open at his fingertips, there for him to covet and take and keep and hoard. He pulls her forehead down to his, holds her chest flush with his own, shares the space between them as if it were breath. He swallows a bark of frustration. For fuck's sake, Annie's here to give him mercy and devotion and her and he just tears himself apart trying to commit to it.

Mitchell is so tired of forcing his heart to feel things.

May the earth give him a chance and he can _have_ this perfect, sweet thing with Annie, he just needs _time_ ; time, which has never been against him until _now_.

* * *

For the past few days, Mitchell has been proud of maintaining some civility with Nina. But as the full moon approaches and the police visits become more frequent and Herrick's presence claws at Mitchell's skull, he's finding it harder and harder to ignore her cold demeanor and occasional snide remark.

It all comes to a head one very sunny morning before Nina's left for work, yet before George has returned from the same. It's not anything harsh or insulting. She starts by asking why Mitchell hasn't gotten a job, which is easy enough to answer (besides the fact he's volatile, he's also surly and impersonal and dresses like a hitchhiker), but goes on to accuse him of lazing about and taking advantage of her income.

"You barely even go out anymore. Why is that?" she asks as her frustration peaks.

"Because I'm _scared_ , okay? You happy?" Mitchell bursts. To his deep embarrassment, his voice leaps several octaves, but his throat constricts and holds it there. "I'm scared to go out at night, where I might find someone and--" he chokes and swallows and she starts to speak again but he cuts her off. "I'm scared, Nina." He throws his hands in the air. "Congratulations, I'm the coward you always wanted me to be."

"What are you scared of?"

His eyes skid over her shoulder to the vista, a beach now littered with clippings of blood and gore. She follows his gaze, and when she turns back to him, she takes a few steps away, putting more space between them.

"I'm scared of dying," he whispers.

Nina's voice is laced with a strange pity when she answers, "you're a hundred and twenty years old."

He rolls his eyes. "I'm scared of-I don't know. Losing people." He looks back in her eyes as something dawns on him. "Of you taking them all away. I _need_ George and I _need_ Annie. You know I do, you know they make me better, so why--"

"They can only do so much."

Mitchell chuckles in that snake--like way he's perfected and patented. "You've got it all figured out, haven't you?" He licks his lips and smirks. "I'm a monster and a nightmare and a leech. I live in the shadows and bum off my werewolf mate and lure innocent little girls to my bed and--"

"Quit trying so hard," Nina interrupts. "No one believes this cocky act in the stupid leather jacket, you just want attention. You just want us to feel sorry for you and take care of you. Why don't you grow up and be honest with us for once?"

Mitchell growls and starts to pace, clutching his head between his hands. "Don't you think I'm pissed off enough without your help? How's that for _honest_? I make myself so angry--Jesus _Christ-_ -it feels like my guts are on fire, like I'm going to burn from the inside out. At night I feel so _scared_ my _bones_ shake, and I can't sleep and I can't breath." Nina begins shaking her head. Mitchell plows on, " _everything_ , my whole body, it's just pain and hunger and fear and humiliation. I feel like I'm going mad!"

"You _don't_ , you can't _feel_ anything!" She's at the opposite end of the room now, but her words sting as if she clawed them into his skin with her bare hands. "You lying _demon!_ Your body doesn't even _work!_ Stop playing the pity card to get them on your side!"

Mitchell blinks hard and his lips tremble. It takes him several painful--no, they must be _numb_ \--seconds to form words. " _Fuck you!_ How should you know what I can and can't feel?! Keep your fucking hairy nose out of my fucking business!"

" _Mitchell!_ "

He jerks back as if Annie's voice lashed him across the face. He's not sure if she appeared from nowhere or came through the door.

"Stop it!" Annie cries, shocked and disappointed. "Both of you, a bit, lay off each other--but most of all _you_ , you great _prat_!" She wags an accusing finger at Mitchell as her voice grows shrill.

Nina has the decency not to jeer, and though she offers no apology, she leaves the room with polite haste.

Annie doesn't spend too long scolding him; at least, not nearly as long as he deserves. Nina's a pregnant woman for Christ's sake, and his best friend's lover, but every time he talks to her a fresh wave of rage rinses off all that common sense.

When Annie finishes her brief lecture, Mitchell takes her hands and asks, "how much of that did you hear?"

Annie looks at him curiously. "She called you a demon and you called her a bitch. More or less." Mitchell snorts. "Why?" Annie goes on, "did I miss something important? Any secrets you're trying to hide?"

He bites his lip and looks up, but she's grinning and holding back laughter. It was just a joke.

"For the record," Annie adds, "I don't think you're a demon. You couldn't be less like a demon. You _saved_ me. Pretty sure demons don't go around saving things. The opposite, really."

Mitchell grins and gives her a quick kiss. "Well, I'm no angel."

"Oh, I'm not saying you haven't done some bad things. But we all have. People make mistakes. _Normal_ people. _Humans_."

Mitchell tries to swallow, but everything inside him has dried out. He takes a deep breath. "Oh, God, I love you," he says roughly. He pulls her against him and holds her tight and tries to breath in something about her he can store in his memory forever.

For the rest of the day, Mitchell feels dizzy and empty and gnawed-out. In the shower that evening, he forgets to wash his hair and has a good wank instead, until he can hardly keep himself standing. Annie's face quickly dissolves into others: Carl, Lauren, Josie, Arthur. Mitchell starts to slide out of control and in his mind he sees Lucy brandishing a stake and Daisy caked in blood and Peter pulling his hair and men holding him down and he remembers Herrick is only one floor up and he comes, sudden and blinding, with a hoarse sob.

Rivulets of lukewarm water follow the lines between his muscles and veins, outline his hipbones with faint brushstrokes, slither around the back of his neck, trace his cheekbones, run to the floor in a tiny stream from the bow of his top lip. He pants and eases into a wall and the tile is the same temperature as his forehead. He wishes Nina wasn't right about so many things.

* * *

_Ghost Trains_

_Choir Memorial for Deceased Member_

_Bruno's Bereavement: Dog Still Pines for Owner_

Headlines ranging from gruesome to sympathetic reach across the vista in a new, appropriately macabre display for their household. Mitchell reads and re-reads them all, word by word, letter by letter, until the ink all seeps together and has no other meaning but guilt. He reaches a shaky finger to trace under _Carriage of Carnage_ and his lip curls subconsciously.

"Your kind have such morbid hobbies."

Mitchell gasps and yanks his hand back as though the headline burned him. He spins to face the speaker. " _Jesus_ ," he breathes. His eyes dart between the clipping and McNair's gaze. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Scare you a bit, did I, nosferatu?"

Mitchell fights back a tic in his jaw and narrows his eyes.

"Are you people always so skittish?"

"Are you people always so nosy?" Mitchell counters.

McNair chuckles and turns to face him, easing his injured leg to the floor. "We take care of our own."

"Maybe we're not so different," Mitchell says, raising an eyebrow. They grin humorlessly at each other for a moment. Behind Mitchell, the kitchen door swings open and he whirls to face George, whose smile falls as he notices the tension in the room.

"Anyone--what's--is everything … alright in here?" George stammers.

McNair tips his head courteously. "Right as rain."

George stares at him, then slowly turns to face Mitchell, whose hair hangs across his eyes in tangles. " _Grand_ ," he mutters through his teeth.

George's mouth hangs open for a moment. He obviously noticed the contradiction in their tones, despite agreeing out loud. To Mitchell's relief, all he says is, "...Great. Would you … anyone like a drink, then? There's tea, or cider in the fridge."

"That's very kind of you, thanks," McNair says. Mitchell doesn't turn to face him, but McNair's voice runs like hot, cloying sap through his ears. "Sorry, though, I was just heading outside for some fresh air. Little stuffy in here, innit? And _dark_. I think some _sunlight_ would do me some good."

Mitchell swallows a groan and runs a hand through his curls.

After McNair has hobbled out through the foyer, George clears his throat. "I think I'm gonna have a beer."

"Yeah, bring me one too," Mitchell sighs.

They each go through half a bottle of Magners and partake in mundane, companionable small talk about George's job, the tourist season, and their shitty radio signal before they run out of casual banter.

Mitchell takes a swig and wipes his lips, glove catching for a second there on stubble. Uncomfortable with looking in George's eyes, he opts to address his left shoulder when he says softly, "where are you going to change?"

Mitchell's eyes follow George's shoulder as it lifts in a shrug. "I'll just take Tom out to those woods up north, I think. We can stay a couple miles apart and nothing will happen."

"What about Nina?"

George hesitates. Mitchell grips his beer tighter. "She'll be safe," George allows.

"Well--she'll just be in the basement, right?"

George inhales sharply. "Yes! Yeah, yeah, she'll-- _Nina_ will use the basement. Here," he articulates carefully.

Mitchell frowns and finally glances up into George's face and finds it pinched and awkward. He chews his lip distractedly. Mitchell's stomach does a flip and his eyes drift over the collage of news clippings over George's elbow.

The front door opens and closes with a squeal and a crash.

Mitchell flinches violently. The bottle slips from his grip and ricochets off the arm of a chair and shatters across the floor. Beer puddles at the edge of the rug and seeps between the wooden boards. A brief, tense silence passes before George asks, "What's got _you_ so jumpy?"

Mitchell stares at the spill and takes a shaky breath. Nina enters the room and he glowers at her from beneath his brow. He holds her gaze while he answers George.

"There's four too many werewolves in this house."

* * *

Fuck if Mitchell _wants_ to be anywhere near that house at a full moon, no matter how strong the basement lock holds. But he's still pretending to be a good friend so he feels obligated to double-check the state of George, if he's there, or the woman carrying his child. He knocks on the basement door and, with great effort, offers her any help he can give. Unsurprisingly, she doesn't respond.

In fact, the whole house remains dark and eerie and abandoned. _Yeah it's eerie, it's haunted,_ Mitchell thinks, and snorts out loud.

He tops off a beer from the fridge, his fourth of the evening.

Not long after, Mitchell finds himself skulking in the shadows of a pub down the street, rocking back and forth on a wobbly chair and knocking back several more pints. Having long lost count, he stands up, takes a moment to recover from vertigo and approaches the bar. A youngish woman with a pixie cut and untreated nails is perched on a stool there. Mitchell's head lolls to the side and his eyes drift from her lashes to her jaw to her neck to her exposed shoulder and down her shirt.

"Isn't it late for you to be out alone, darling?" he slurs.

Her lips move, but all he hears is a quickening pulse under her skin, and he shakes his head vigorously to clear his mind.

"You have a what?" he croaks.

"A _fiancé_ ," she says firmly and tries to pull her elbow out of his grip. When did his hand get there?

He smirks. "What is it they say? Three's company?" His tongue pokes between his teeth as he watches her mouth. She looks half-way between sniggering and being sick.

An angry voice starts barking over Mitchell's shoulder and strong hands spin him around to face a lean, clean-shaven thirty-something snarling and cursing at him.

Mitchell licks his lips and says something crude and forgettable and before he knows it a cold, fresh wind washes over his face in the light of the full moon.

A brick wall collides with his back and knocks the wind out of his lungs. A hard body sandwiches him there, hands twisting viciously into his jacket. A low laugh rumbles in the back of Mitchell's throat. He closes his eyes and tears slip down his cheeks, stretched by a manic smile.

"What's so _funny?!_ " the voice sounds livid. The man gives him a good shake. "You won't be laughing when I'm done with you, you twat!"

"When _you're_ done with _me!_ "

The hands shove harder against his chest, drag him a few feet across the wall. A doorframe digs into his shoulder blade. Mitchell gasps and squirms and lets out a long, wailing sound like a mockery of laughter. A knee connects hard with his groin and he doubles over at the base of the wall. He scrambles and fails to escape a kick to the stomach and he smiles until his face hurts and he sucks in just enough air to cackle painfully.

All Mitchell can see is white. He clutches his fingers into the gravel and glowers like a caged animal. His gums ache. Screams scrape across the background and leave a trail, a trail that would be easy to follow, but instead he holds his breath and fills his senses with every image and memory he has of Annie. He digs his heels in and strains his muscles against each other and pushes himself hard into the wall and catches his breath, still broken by short little sobs of laughter, still trying to erase the tear tracks.

Mitchell knows its smooth at the top if he can just scale this cliff without anyone seeing him. It will level out then and he can keep Annie in his arms and leave the jagged rocks behind.

* * *

Before Annie joins him, Mitchell has the whole steely vacuum of the cell to himself. The time that passes can't be measured and it's relative, anyway; relative to lonely inaction and reserves of patience and the effects or lack thereof of temperature over a century of experience.

He stares at the angle of the wall and the ceiling and gives up the act of breathing. He slumps on the bench in the corner, a corpse that will never rot, even in this prison. A parade of policemen stop to peek in his window and sweat and worry and take pictures and ask questions. When they speak to him, Mitchell doesn't answer, but he tilts his head and catches their gaze and doesn't move a muscle otherwise and they don't stay long after that.

He can't see any way to fix things or to win Annie back except one; he has to return to Herrick and bring him back, sacrifices be damned. No matter what it takes. Explanations can come after. Once he has those answers he can leave his fears behind and set things right again like all the times before.

Fleetingly, Mitchell wonders if vampires are more animal than human; if his bone-deep desire to survive despite all his wrongdoing stems from something base and instinctive and wild. It would be nice to blame the vampire, as if it were someone else, something sharing his body, after all these years.

* * *

He killed Herrick. It was exhilarating. He imagined he could almost taste blood between his teeth. He killed Herrick, and it felt good. And that's how he knows it is time to stop.

If there had been any misgivings, any hope before, it evaporates now with Herrick. The satisfaction seeping in his very bones answers all of his questions. The love Mitchell feels for that easy death is the stake in his own heart.

And still, despite all that, Mitchell is _scared_ \--so scared he can't swallow around the hive of fear in his throat. And that is why he has to go back to a person who is better than him; a person who _was_ better than him all along. Mitchell knows that because he's scared, he needs help to finish this. It hurts, because needing help makes him need to do it more, which serves to frighten him more.

The cycle nauseates him.

He staggers out of the car and gazes across the long horizon, the lines between the world and the water and the light. By rights it should be too large for one life, this expanse of tension and conflict and compassion; this irreversible, intimate place in the world where every moment of a man's past and present can light up his nerves and inscribe a song on his skin.

Mitchell slides his hand up to his chest and curls his fingers around the shape of a wooden stake wrapped deep in a coat pocket. He presses it hard into himself, parallel to his torso, until each rung on his ribcage might etch a lifeline into the wood. He chokes out a sob, a wretched, humiliating sound that should only belong to powerless people or hungry beasts locked in cages or victims.

He thinks there's nothing in the world as pathetic as wanting to survive now, still, after everything, but he _does_ , to the last _inch_. God, the beast in him just wants to kill more and feed more and fuck more and live more.

He hates himself. He hates so much it hurts him from his toes to the tip of his tongue. He knows George will hate him too, and thinks it's better, fairer, that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU to everyone who has read and followed this long, drawn-out affair even though its only purpose was to sap us all of our humanity. (Ironyyy.) Thanks to every reader who left a review (no matter how long or short or positive or negative), bookmarks, favorites, kudos, subscriptions, on and on. Every little notification I get makes me feel warm and fuzzy. And thanks to all the lurkers, because trust me, I'm one of you. You are SO appreciated. Every reader is appreciated.
> 
> I could mention a lot of people by name, so please don't take it personally if I don't; but most of all I want to thank my most loyal cheerleaders, Black Hawk, SamanthaBlue, and ladyzaniahstrangeling. They had to put up with the longest rants, and yet they were still willing to come back for more. I can't thank you enough, ladies :)
> 
> Is it weird to want to thank my characters? Because I kind of want to. Especially poor Mitchell, who somehow found it in him to deal with all the shit I put him through. And thanks to Toby Whithouse and the other writers/creators who worked on Being Human, a universe with such depth and potential. It was fun to play in.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have tumblr, follow my writing blog (queenmab-scherzo) for background info, previews, and other stupid things I think about while I write.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Rabbit Song](https://archiveofourown.org/works/857185) by [SherlockHolmes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockHolmes/pseuds/SherlockHolmes)




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